THE BEJ33GEWATEE, TREATISES , 

ON THE 



POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED 
IN THE CREATION. 



ON 

THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL 
AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



By THOMAS OHALMEES, D.D. 



OX THE 

POWER WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD 

AS MANIFESTED IN THE 

ADAPTATION OE EXTERNAL NATUKE 

TO THE 

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 

BY THE 

REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 

WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS. 

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED 

A BIO GRAPHICAL PREFACE, 

BY THE 

REV. JOHN CUMMIN G-, D.D. 



LONDON : 

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
1853. 



XL/75* 
l%53 



By Transfer 
JUN 190/ 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE: 

BY 

THE REV. DR. CUMMING. 



Dr. Chalmers was b6¥&£t Anstruther, N. B. March 
17, 1/80. He was nearly thirty years old when he first 
awoke to a perception of the truth, reality and claims of 
Christianity. At that time the whole of Europe lay in 
a state of spiritual stupor. There was little earnest feel- 
ing anywhere on any great moral and religious subject. 
It was supposed that the chief use of Christianity was 
to be a good subsidiary to the State, and that her minis- 
ters were most efficient when they did best the duties 
of moral policemen. This was the general notion where 
any estimate was formed of religion at all, and was 
probably the highest and widest view, except in the 
minds of a handful of decided Christians. The age was 
cold, secular, utilitarian. The standard of approval 
was a low practical usefulness, and just so much of 
Christianity was held in solution in the national con- 
science as kept up a decent formalism — a tolerable 
peace, and an available outside morality. 



vi 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



To avoid cant it was requisite to avoid the use of a 
solemn phrase, a scriptural expression, or even a reli- 
gious reference ; true religion could not be mentioned 
without the prefix of an apology. A devout man was 
regarded as a fanatic. An earnest and eloquent preacher 
of distinctive Christian tenets was at once branded as a 
Methodist. The clergy of the Church of England were 
many of them fox-hunters : those of the Church of 
Scotland were some of them writers of plays. Fame 
was thought possible only by renouncing the sphere of 
religion. Literature represented religion as a mischiev- 
ous and ungentlemanly infusion. Science looked down 
contemptuously on the vulgar weakness that believed 
in the Pentateuch, and thought the Son of God infi- 
nitely superior to Plato or Socrates. It was generally 
understood that religion was incompatible with scholar- 
ship 5 hostile to science, and on the whole also not very 
fit for genteel society. 

This impression was deepened by the course pursued 
by too many of the more respectable clergy. In their 
literary and scientific productions they studiously 
avoided any allusion to the peculiar doctrines of their 
faith. They devoted their greatest talents mainly to 
subjects totally disconnected with their profession: 
they wrote admirable treatises and preached the most 
contemptible sermons. Nothing was too able or elo- 
quent for the Press. Nothing was too poor — too mean 
or schoolboy like for the pulpit. The clergyman usually 



BY DR. CUMMING. 



left his religion outside the drawing room, in which he 
played the part of an accomplished man of the world, 
hiding as much as he could his connexion with the 
altar. There was no great objection to a short prayer 
by a death bed, but it was thought too methodistic an 
affair to be intruded on society or suffered to darken 
the sunny hours of human life. 

Chalmers entered on his ministry as intensely secular 
a parish priest, though not as profane, as Sterne 6? 
Swift. He regarded the ministry as a profession — his 
benefice as a living, and a dry moral essay hurriedly 
got up on Saturday and coldly read on Sunday as suffi- 
cient duty done for his stipend. He was an earnest 
mathematician and a fair geologist, and to the pursuits 
peculiar to these he devoted alike his chief strength 
and five days a week. He was a specimen of his con- 
temporaries in both Ecclesiastical establishments. 

The grand falsehood of that period was, that religion 
was one among many subjects, and not the most im- 
portant one, instead of being regarded as the inspira- 
tion — the coherence and the harmony of all. 

A great change passed on the mind of Chalmers 
about 1809, in the thirtieth year of his age. The nature 
and claims and importance of Christianity then assumed 
in his judgment a grandeur and magnificence that made 
him see he had never yet known aright what religion 
was. A season of illness was the time of this new and 
blessed apocalypse — a season still fruitful of unutterable 



Viii BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 

good. It drives our thoughts inwards, lays low proud 
imaginations, and brings the soul bare and naked into 
nearer and clearer contact with eternal things. The 
night of affliction is like the night of nature. It shuts 
down on the beauties of the earth below, but opens 
up more than compensatory splendour on the starry 
firmament above. To Chalmers that night of sick- 
ness was a birth-night. During his illness he la- 
boured to fulfil his promise to write the article "Chris- 
tianity" for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. This at once 
carried him into the arena on which Voltaire, Shaftesbury, 
Paine, and others, stood ready to encounter him. He 
brought to bear upon the conflict all the powers and 
resources of his mind — enthusiasm that never faltered, 
and energy that never wearied — and the result was a 
noble defence of our religion, that made a deep and 
wide impression on the public mind. " One day," says 
Mr. Smith, "he called on me, and said, ( Tell me all 
that ever you heard against Christianity from its ene- 
mies : I am more than able to refute them all. The 
evidences of our religion are overwhelming/ ;; * From 
this period the distinctive and peculiar truths of Chris- 
tianity were the earnest study and the ever-absorbing 
themes of Chalmers. It was now a life not a trade. 
The eloquence of his lips was a current from the fulness 
of his heart. The great doctrine which Martin Luther 
dug from the rubbish and debris of mediaeval supersti- 

* Hanna's Life, vol. i. p. 194. 



BY DR. CUMMINCr. 



ix 



tion, by which it had been long and laboriously overlaid 
— the article of a standing or a falling church presented 
itself to the mind of Chalmers in all the freshness of a 
new discovery. et I feel it myself as the greatest en- 
lightenment and enlargement I ever had experienced, 
when made to understand both the indispensable need 
of morality, and the securities that we have for its being 
realized in the character of Christians, notwithstanding 
the doctrine that by faith, and faith alone, we are justi- 
fied — a doctrine which I at one time regarded as Anti- 
nomian in its tendencies, and as adverse to the interests 
of virtue, and practical righteousness in the world 

A new tone was now audible in Chalmers' preaching. 
A new and unearthly fervour thrilled the hearts of his 
audience. Numbers of the clergy travelled far to hear 
him ; and carried away impressions they never lost, and 
impulses not soon spent. A moral transformation took 
place over all his parish ; of which he afterwards wrote 
the following memorable account, in his address to his 
parishioners : 

" And here I cannot but record the effect of an actual 
though undesigned experiment, which I prosecuted for 
upwards of twelve years among you. For the greater 
part of that time I could expatiate on the meanness of 
dishonesty, — on the villany of falsehood, — on the de- 
spicable arts of calumny — in a word — upon all those 
deformities of character which awaken the natural in- 

* Posthumous Works, vol. ix. p. 376. 



X 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



dighation of the human heart against the pests and the 
disturbers of human society. Now, could I, upon the 
strength of these warm expostulations, have got the 
thief to give up his stealing, and the evil speaker his 
deviations from truth, I should have felt all the repose 
of one who had gotten his ultimate object done. It 
never occurred to me that all this might have been 
done, and yet the soul of every hearer have remained in 
full alienation from God ; and that even could I have 
established in the bosom of one who stole such a prin- 
ciple of abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty, that 
he was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still 
have retained a heart as completely unturned to God, 
and as totally unpossessed by a principle of love to Him 
as before. In a word, though I might have made him 
a more upright and honourable man, I might have left 
him as destitute of the essence of religious principle as 
ever. But the interesting fact is, that during the whole 
of that period in which I made no attempt against the 
natural enmity of the mind to God, while I was inat- 
tentive to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, 
even by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing 
acceptance on the other, of the Gospel salvation, — while 
Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature 
stands afar off, is brought near to the heavenly Law- 
giver whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, 
or spoken of in such a way as stripped Him of all the 
importance of His character and His offices, even at this 



BY DR. CTJMMINGr. 



xi 



time I certainly did press the reformations of honour 
and truth and integrity among my people ; but I never 
heard of any such reformations haying been effected 
amongst them. If there was anything at all brought 
about in this way, it was more than eyer I got account 
of. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with 
which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of social 
life, had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of 
my parishioners. And it was not till reconciliation to 
Him became the distinct and the prominent object of 
my ministerial exertions : it was not till the free offer 
of forgiveness, through the blood of Christ, was urged 
upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given through 
the channel of Christ's mediatorship to all who ask Him, 
was set before them as the necessary object of their de- 
pendence and their prayers ; — in one word, it was not 
till the contemplations of my people were turned to these 
great and essential elements in the business of a soul 
providing for its interests with God and the concerns of 
its eternity, that I ever heard of any of those subordi- 
nate reformations which I aforetime made the earnest 
and the zealous, but I am afraid at the same time, the 
ultimate object of my earlier administrations. Ye ser- 
vants, whose scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the 
notice, and drawn forth in my hearing, a delightful testi- 
mony from your masters, what mischief you would have 
done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacraments been 
accompanied by sloth, and the remissness, and what in 



xii 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



the prevailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted the 
allowable purloinings of your earlier days ! But a sense 
of your Heavenly Master's eye lias brouglit another in- 
fluence to bear upon you ; and while you are thus striv- 
ing to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all 
things, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones 
of the land to the acknowledgment of the faith you 
have at least taught me, that to preach. Christ is the 
only effective way of preaching morality in all its 
branches; and out of your humble cottages have I 
gathered a lesson which I pray God I may be enabled 
to carry with all its simplicity into a wider theatre ; and 
to bring, with all the power of its subduing efficacy, 
upon the vices of a more crowded population."* 

The fame of Chalmers spread over the length and 
breadth of Scotland. By spine he was thought a little 
deranged, but by the best and deepest thinkers, and 
most earnest Christians, it was justly believed a live coal 
from off the altar had touched his heart and life. In 
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a 
clergyman of the old high and dry school, on hearing 
Chalmers make a speech too solemn and too spiritual 
for his taste, against plurality of livings, reminded 
Chalmers that he used to think five days a- week due to 
mathematics, and two enough for his pulpit and reli- 
gion. To this Chalmers made the magnanimous reply re- 
corded by a hearer. " Dr. Chalmers acknowledged, in 
* Ibid. Vol. i. pp. 430-432. 



BY DR. CUMMINGL 



Xlll 



the amplest terms, the justice of the rebuke ; but ex- 
pressed his joy that the hour had come when an op- 
portunity was given him of publicly confessing how 
wrong, how outrageously wrong, had been the estimate 
he had formed in those by-gone days, of the littleness 
of time and the magnitude of eternity." 
The incident is thus given by Dr. Hanna : 

" The discussion on pluralities having lasted till midnight 
on Wednesday the 25th, was adjourned till the following 
day. Late in the afternoon of the second day's debate, a 
speech on the opposite side had been closed by a quotation 
from an anonymous pamphlet, in which the author asserted 
that, from what to him was the highest of all authority — 
the authority of his own experience, — he could assert that 
' after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a mi- 
nister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted 
leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste 
may dispose him to engage.' As this passage was empha- 
tically read, no doubtful hint being given as to its author- 
ship, all eyes were turned towards Dr. Chalmers. The 
interposition of another speech afforded him an opportunity 
for reflecting on the best manner of meeting this personal 
attack. At the close of the debate, and amid breathless 
silence, he spoke as follows : f Sir, that pamphlet I now 
declare to have been a production of my own, published 
twenty years ago. I was indeed much surprised to hear it 
brought forward and quoted this evening ; and I instantly 
conceived, that the reverend gentleman who did so, had been 
working at the trade of a resurrectionist. Verily, I believed 



xiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



that my unfortunate pamphlet had long ere now descended 
into the tomb of merited oblivion ; and that there it was 
mouldering in silence, forgotten and disregarded. But, since 
that gentleman has brought it forward, in the face of this 
House, I can assure him that I feel grateful to him from the 
bottom of my heart, for the opportunity he has now afforded 
me of making a public recantation of the sentiments it con- 
tains. I have read a tract, entitled, the 6 Last Moments of 
the Earl of Eochester,' and I was powerfully struck, in read- 
ing it, with the conviction how much evil a pernicious 
pamphlet may be the means of disseminating. At the time 
when I wrote it, I did not conceive that my pamphlet would 
do much evil ; but, Sir, considering the conclusions that have 
been deduced from it by the reverend gentleman, I do feel 
obliged to him for reviving it, and for bringing me forward 
to make my public renunciation of what is there written. I 
now confess myself to have been guilty of a heinous crime ; 
and I now stand a repentant culprit before the bar of this 
venerable Assembly. The circumstances attending the pub- 
lication of my pamphlet were shortly as follows : As far back 
as twenty years ago, I was ambitious enough to aspire to be 
successor to Professor Playfair in the Mathematical Chair of 
the University of Edinburgh. During the discussion which 
took place, relative to the person who might be appointed 
his successor, there appeared a letter from Professor Playfair, 
to the magistrates of Edinburgh, on the subject ; in which he 
stated it as his conviction, that no person could be found 
competent to discharge the duties of a Mathematical Chair 
among the clergymen of the Church of Scotland. I was at 
that time, Sir, more devoted to mathematics than to the litera- 



BY DR. CUMMING. 



XV 



ture of my profession ; and feeling grieyed and indignant 
at what I conceived an undue reflection on the abilities and 
education of our clergy, I came forward with that pamphlet, 
to rescue them from what I deemed an unmerited reproach, 
by maintaining that a devoted and exclusive attention to the 
study of mathematics was not dissonant to the proper habits 
of a clergyman. Alas ! Sir, so I thought, in my ignorance 
and pride. I have now no reserve in saying, that the senti- 
ment was wrong ; and that, in the utterance of it, I penned 
what was most outrageously wrong. Strangely blinded that 
I was ! What, Sir, is the object of mathematical science ? 
Magnitude, and the proportion of magnitude. But then. 
Sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes — I thought not of the 
littleness of time, — I recklessly thought not of the greatness 
of eternity!' "* 

A number of influential parishioners of the Tron 
Church ; Glasgow, petitioned the Town Council, the 
patrons of the living, to present Dr. Chalmers to that 
church. His election is thus graphically told by Dr. 
Jones, in a letter to the minister of Kilmany : — 

My dear Sir, 

I have this instant received the accounts from Glas- 
gow that the battle, the great battle, has been fought and 
the victory won. 

For Chalmers fifteen ; for McParlen ten ; for Maclean 
four; and one non liquet. Heaven and earth, and all the 
principalities and powers in high places, have been moved 



* Ibid. Vol. iii. pp. 76-78. 



xvi 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



from the great officers of State at St. James's and the Court 
of Aldermen in King Street, and the Crown Lawyers in 
Edinburgh, down to the little female piets who were taught 
to squall what they did not understand, ' ]STo Fanatics ! No 
Balfourites! Eationalists for ever!' No small stir I'll 
assure you has been in that city, and no such stir has been 
there since the days of John Knox, it is said, about the 
choice of a minister. And oh ! miserabile dictu, tell it not 
in St. Andrews ! the fanatics have prevailed, and prevailed 
against one of the most numerous and well appointed armies 
which ever took the field on such an occasion. The order 
of battle was this : In the centre of the enemy was the 
Lord Provost, who commanded the main corps, and which 
being thought rather weak, as the centre of their opponents 
was very strong, they strengthened it with the London 
Guildhall allies, headed by Sir James Shaw. On the right 
was the Duke of Montrose and the heavy horse, and on the 
left the Lord Advocate and the light horse. In front were 
some clerical skirmishers headed by Principal Dolt, w r ho 
threw rockets and firebrands, and said ' much learning and 
religion has made Chalmers mad.' Much was expected from 
this weapon, but it was rendered quite useless by the oppos- 
ing remark, ' That it came well from him, as it was noto- 
rious to every one that his head was not in the least danger.' 
These being driven in, confident in their strength, the main 
body of their opponents came down in full force, made one 
charge and went right through the enemy, and so com- 
pletely defeated them, that in half an hour not two of them 
were to be seen together ; and no sooner had the news 
reached the town on the afternoon of Friday the 25th of 



BY DR. CUMMIXG. 



xvii 



Xoveinber, than all the town was in an uproar of joy, says 
my informant, 6 Kirkmen, Burghers, Antiburghers, Inde- 
pendents, and Baptists, all joining in one shout of exulta- 
tion.' The news has had little less effect, I assure you, in 
this city, every one meets or runs to his friend, through a 
most heavy rain to say, c Oh ! have you heard the good news, 
Mr. Chalmers is elected to the Tron Kirk, Glasgow !' Hav- 
ing indulged in a little levity at the expense of the adver- 
sary, I will be serious. I sincerely congratulate you, my 
dear Sir, on your election to Glasgow, an event in which 
you have had no concern, but as became you were com- 
pletely passive. But now matters have taken another shape, 
and present another front. There is, I think there can be, 
but one opinion, that the matter is from God, and the call 
in course of the progress of the event, shews it to be from 
Heaven, and therefore you have nothing to do but to thank- 
fully accept it. A great and effectual door is opened to 
you to publish the glad tidings of peace. It only re- 
mains that you enter in. May you do so in all the fulness 
of the Gospel of our Lord, and long, very long, may you 
be useful, very useful and very happy. 

The only drawback is the little prospect of a good suc- 
cessor to Kilmany ; but this is completely counterbalanced 
or rather greatly outweighed by the similar circumstances 
at Glasgow, should you not accept ; but the not accepting 
I think now ought not once to be thought of. Shall we see 
you in town this winter ? "Will you make me glad by 
coming to my house and pulpit ? The Glasgow folks want 
you before their sacrament in April. Sad work went on it 
seems the last week or two * * * Robert Tennant and his 

b 



xviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



brother have been indefatigable. Best compliments to Mrs. 
C. and Ann, and I am affectionately and respectfully your 
friend and brother, 

T. S. Jones. 

It is but justice to Dr. Macfarlane, now the venerable 
Principal of the University of Glasgow, to add that his 
heart grew as well as Dr. Chalmers' in piety, in truth, 
in devotedness. Dr. Chalmers would have been the 
first to own before he died, that no name is more weighty 
and no character more beloved, and no man's love of 
real religion more unfeigned than the Venerable Prin- 
cipal's. 

The time of that election was the dawn of a better 
day. Many saw dimly and darkly then who now walk 
in the light. The change in Chalmers' mind was 
thorough. Such subjection, so entire and so consuming, 
as he now exhibited, was no mean proof and no feeble 
credential of the Gospel. A change of sect, or church, 
or party may be the result of prejudice, or passion, or 
mistake, but this was evidence of a change of heart 
— a regeneration of nature, and of nothing less. 

Chalmers preached his first sermon in Glasgow, the 
new field of his labours, in behalf of the Society of the 
Sons of the Clergy, in 1815. It made an unparalleled 
impression on a vast auditory; every succeeding sermon, 
if possible, added to his fame — a fame that in no re* 
spect corrupted his mind or threw him off his balance. 
He looked too high to take much notice of what dazzles 



BY DR. CUMMINGr, XIX 

vulgar eyes. Dr. Hanna in his Memoir gives an esti- 
mate of Chalmers impartially and graphically written 
by an Oxford hearer, fonnd in Peter's Letters to his 
Kinsfolk (2nd edit. vol. iii. pp. 267, 273.) 

" I was a good deal surprised and perplexed with the first 
glimpse I obtained of his countenance, for the light that 
streamed faintly upon it for the moment did not reveal any 
thing like that general outline of feature and visage for 
which my fancy had, by some strange working . of presenti- 
ment, prepared me. Bye and bye, however, the light be- 
came stronger, and I was enabled to study the minutisD of 
his face pretty leisurely while he leaned forward and read 
aloud the words of the Psalm, for that is always done in 
Scotland, not by the clerk but by the clergyman himself. 

" At first sight no doubt his face is a coarse one, but a 
mysterious kind of meaning breathes from every part of it, 
that such as have eyes to see cannot be long without dis- 
covering. It is very pale, and the large half closed eyelids 
have a certain drooping melancholy weight about them 
which interested me very much, I understood not why. The 
lips too are singularly pensive in their mode of falling down 
at the sides, although there is no want of richness and 
vigour in their central fulness of curve. The upper hp, 
from the nose downwards, is separated by a very deep line, 
which gives a sort of leonine firmness of expression to all 
the lower parts of the face. The cheeks are square and 
strong in texture like pieces of marble, with the cheek bones 
very broad and prominent. The eyes themselves are light 
in colour and have a strange dreamy heaviness that conveys 



XX 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



any idea rather than that of dulness, but which contrasts in 
a wonderful manner with the dazzling watery glare they ex- 
hibit when expanded in their sockets and illuminated into 
all their flame and fervour in some moment of high en- 
tranced enthusiasm. But the shape of the forehead is 
perhaps the most singular part of the whole visage ; and 
indeed it presents a picture so very singular, of forms com- 
monly exhibited only in the widest separation, that it is no 
wonder I should have required some little time to comprehend 
the meaning of it. In the first place it is without exception 
the most marked mathematical forehead I ever met with — 
being far wider across the eyebrows than either Mr. Playfair's 
or Mr. Leslie's ; and having the eyebrows themselves lifted 
up at their exterior ends, quite out of the usual line, a pecu- 
liarity which Spurzheim had remarked in the countenances of 
almost all the great mathematical or calculating genuises — 
such, for example, if I rightly remember, as Sir Issac New- 
ton himself, Kaestener, Euler, and many others. Imme- 
diately above the extraordinary breadth of this region, 
which, in the heads of most mathematical persons, is sur- 
mounted by no fine points of organization whatever, imme- 
diately above this, in the forehead there is an arch of imagi- 
nation, carrying out the summit boldly and roundly, in a 
style to which the heads of very few poets present anything 
comparable, while over this again there is a grand apex of 
high and solemn veneration and love, such as might have 
graced the bust of Plato himself, and such as in living men 
I had never beheld equalled in any but the majestic head 
of Canova. The whole is edged with a few crisp dark locks, 
which stand forth boldly, and afford a fine relief to the death- 



BY DR. CUMMING. 



xxi 



like paleness of those massive temples. # * * * * # 
Of all human compositions, there is none, surely, which loses 
so much as a sermon does, when it is made to address itself 
to the eye of a solitary student in his closet, and not to the 
thrilling ears of a mighty, mingled congregation, through 
the very voice which Nature has enriched with notes more 
expressive than words can ever be, of the meaning and feel- 
ings of its author. Neither, perhaps, did the world ever pos- 
sess any orator whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and 
voice have more power in increasing the effect of what he says, 
— whose delivery, in other words, is the first, and the second, 
and the third, excellence of his oratory, more truly than is that 
of Dr. Chalmers. And yet, were the spirit of the man less 
gifted than it is, there is no question these, his lesser peculia- 
rities, would never have been numbered among his points of 
excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious, — his 
gestures are neither easy nor graceful ; but, on the contrary, 
extremely rude and awkward, — his pronunciation is not only 
broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost 
every word he utters into some barbarous novelty, which, 
had his hearer leisure to think of such things, might be pro- 
ductive of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a 
singular degree. But of a truth, these are things which no 
listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before 
him, armed with all the weapons of .the most commanding 
eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial 
rule. At first, indeed, there is nothing to make one suspect 
what riches are in store. He commences in a low drawling 
key, which has not even the merit of being solemn, and 
advances from sentence to senteuce, and from paragraph to 



xxii 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a single echo that 
gives promise of that which is to come. There is, on the con- 
trary, an appearance of constraint about him that affects and 
distresses you. You are afraid that his breast is weak, and 
that even the slightest exertion he makes may be too much 
for it. But, then, with what tenfold richness does this dim 
preliminary curtain make the glories of his eloquence to 
shine forth, when the heated spirit at length shakes from it 
its chill, confining fetters, and bursts out elate and rejoicing 
in the full splendour of its disimprisoned wings. * * * * 
I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged, 
in regard to argument ; and have heard very many deliver 
sermons far more uniform in elegance, both of conception 
and of style ; but most unquestionably, I have never heard, 
either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any 
preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect 
so strong and irresistible as his." 

In the autumn of 1815, Chalmers preached his astro- 
nomical sermons. This volume is still his masterpiece. 
It will live longest. It laid the foundation of a fame 
wider than that which any Scottish clergyman had 
ever reached. Hazlitt, Canning, Sir James Mackintosh, 
and other leading minds of the day, pronounced on these 
the highest and most justly-merited eulogium. These 
sermons are demonstrations that, as far as astronomy is 
concerned, Christianity has every reason to hail an ally, 
and not one to dread an enemy. This important line of 
argument was greatly and triumphantly used by Chal- 



BY DR. CUMMING. 



xxiii 



mers. Its importance, it is scarcely possible to over- 
estimate. 

In these prefatory remarks, it is inexpedient to dwell 
on Dr. Chalmers as the Incumbent of the Tron Church 
or of St. John^s, — on his scrupulous devotedness to 
all the duties and responsibilities of his charge, — his 
attractive and noble eloquence, — his earnest piety and 
eminent success, — his theories of pauperism, or his 
beau ideal of a National Church ; its organization and 
its elements of usefulness. It is his vindication of 
Christianity from sciolists and empyrical assertions 
of the hostility of science to Scripture that here 
demands our notice. The logic of his replies in his 
astronomical sermons is as pure and true as his elo- 
quence is splendid. It is the scientific sceptic who 
looks mean and poor and almost contemptible beside 
the Christian philosopher. It is still found that Chris- 
tianity is far in advance of all that science has collected 
from the depths and brought down from the heights of 
the universe. Every year proves that we must make 
apologies for science — none for Christianity. Like a dis- 
tant star the Gospel grows in lustre, in beauty, and in 
purity the nearer we approach it. Time writes no 
wrinkles on the brow of our religion. It came not from 
the dust and to the dust it does not return. I have 
already written of Chalmers elsewhere what his life by 
Dr. Hanna has since confirmed. His great genius would 
have raised him to the very loftiest place of power, pre- 



xxiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



eminence, and even gain, in any other profession. But 
all his talents were consecrated to the cause, and en- 
listed in the service of his Lord. 

An astronomer — a mathematician — a philosopher, 
yet he preferred to be felt while living and remembered 
when dead as the earnest and devoted Christian. His 
reason was quickened by the inspiration and his imagina- 
tion kindled from the altar of Christianity. In Church 
politics he could be dazzled by a crotchet, and led 
about the almost unquestioning victim of subtle and 
unscrupulous spirits ; but in the higher walks of eternal 
truth — in the vindication of the Gospel, in the defence 
of its glory, its excellence, and its truth, he was the 
independent thinker — the mighty logician — the eloquent 
orator. With the simplicity of a child he combined 
the intellectual calibre of a giant. Whatever great 
truth he discussed he made so luminous that few 
could fail to see it, while at the same time he clothed 
it with such and so varied splendour that all retained 
the impression even after the minister's features had 
perished from their memory. With a mode of address 
the most unprepossessing, a style and phraseology 
idiomatic and uncouth, and an accent utterly wanting 
in music to southern ears, he yet rivetted the minds of 
the thoughtless, mastered the objections of the sceptic, 
and roused the conscience and stirred the responsibili- 
ties of the ungodly, and led them captive as beneath 
the might and witchery of an irresistible spell. 



BY DR. CUMMING. 



XXV 



Long the minister of one of the largest parishes of 
Glasgow, he set there an example of earnest piety and 
untiring labour. He had a word of power for all. The 
merchant felt Christianity by means of his commercial 
sermons present in the very centre of his circumstances, 
prescribing duties and promising rewards, and right- 
fully exacting a tribute from all his gains for the altar 
of Him whose smiles made him rich, and whose grace 
alone could make him happy. He followed the sceptic 
into all his retreats, and overtook him and overwhelmed 
him in each in succession. At one time he would 
track his course along subterranean mines, amid fossil 
remains and fragments of aboriginal chaos, and con- 
found him there with the undeniable footprints of Deity. 
At another, he would rise on untiring wing, and pursue 
him from star to star, — from system to system, — and 
confute him there, and bring back to this earth, as the 
evidence of his victory, a more glorious apocalypse of the 
power, resources, and glory of God. Nor did he less 
excel in exhibiting the great and distinguishing doctrines 
of the everlasting Gospel. All his discourses are inlaid 
with these. He, of all men, most clearly detected the 
links of connexion among the doctrines of the Gospel ; 
long hidden and beautiful affinities unseen by ordinary 
minds, but visible to his ; and truths that seemed to the 
outward eye isolated and disconnected, he shewed to 
cohere by fibres running below and binding together all 
the trees in the paradise of God, one with the other, and 



XXvi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 

all with the Tree of Life. He never handled a doctrine 
without throwing forth masses of truth, that were like 
ingots of gold to ordinary minds. 

It would not be easy to express the greatness of 
the obligations of the Christian ministry to Dr. Chal- 
mers; and it would not be more easy to state how 
much men of science owe to him. He was the first 
who made the scholars and literati and philosophers 
of the nineteenth century, feel their littleness beside 
the Apostles and Evangelists of the first. None were 
so successful in extorting from all the sciences tribute 
for Christianity, or so happy in casting light on the 
most distinguishing peculiarities of evangelical religion 
from the various discoveries of modern science. In 
his writings, all the sciences are seen to be as the hand- 
maids of religion, approaching the great temple of ever- 
lasting truth, spreading new embroideries on its shrines, 
and laying their most precious things on her altar. As- 
tronomy, in his pages, shews all her splendour is bor- 
rowed from the Sun of righteousness. Geology empties 
the deepest mines at his bidding, and presents her most 
brilliant gems, and her most precious metals, as dim 
reflections of His glory. Botany weaves around the cross 
her amaranthine garlands ; and Newton comes from his 
starry home ; Linnseus, from his flowery resting place ; 
and Werner and Hutton, from their subterraneous 
graves, at the voice of Chalmers, to acknowledge that all 
they learned and elicited in their respective provinces, 



BY DR. CUMMINO. 



XXV11 



has only served to shew more clearly, that Jesus of 
Nazareth is enthroned on the riches of the universe, and 
that the voice of Christianity is the voice of God. This 
is no ordinary demonstration. Yet it was the demon- 
stration actually achieved by the great and accomplished 
man whose loss is not the calamity of a sect, but a 
catastrophe to the Christian world. 

The origin of the work to which these ^remarks are 
prefixed, was the following letter from the Bishop of 
London to Dr. Chalmers :—> 

" London, Oct. 1st, 1830. 

" My deae Sib, 

" Tou may perhaps have heard that the late Earl 
of Bridgewater left the sum of ^88000, to be disposed of by 
the President of the Boyal Society, in procuring a treatise, 
or treatises, to be written in proof of the wisdom and bene- 
volence of the Deity, as manifested in the works of Crea- 
tion. 

tc Mr. Davies Gilbert is of opinion, it may with advantage 
be treated of under eight distinct heads : one of which is, the 
adaptation of the physical constitution of man to his intel- 
lectual and moral faculties, or vice versa ; another is, the pro- 
vision made by the Deity for the wants and comforts of 
man in the works of Nature. 

" Mr. Davies Gilbert having consulted me on the subject, 
I told him, that if you could be prevailed upon to undertake 
the former of these heads, it would be well disposed of ; and 
accordingly he has ordered me to propose it to you. The 
expenses of publication will be defrayed out of the Legacy ; 



xxviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



after which, I suppose, that there will be a sum of 56700 to 
.=£800, payable to the writer of each treatise. 

" It would give me great pleasure to learn that your name 
might adorn the list. I remain, dear Sir, with sincere re- 
spect, your very faithful servant, 

" C. J. London." 

There was in this selection a liberality that does the 
Bishop credit ; and yet not more than was due to so 
great a genius, so good a man and so successful a de- 
fender of National Establishments. 

This work appeared in 1833. It has passed through 
several editions, and has taken its place, amid the ablest, 
though not perhaps most splendid, of Dr. Chalmers* 
works. It travels over most interesting ground, and 
with a beautiful and musical pace such as Paley neither 
knew nor shewed. If it traces few heretofore undetected 
affinities and adaptations, it pourtrays old thoughts in 
new colouring, and throws over the investigation a 
splendour peculiarly the writer's own. It is well worth 
the earnest study of every thinker. It has attractions 
for all. It was one of the great subjects on which 
the genius of Chalmers loved to dwell. Every day new 
elements of ampler illustration are still discovered. But 
it needs a Chalmers to turn them to account. 

The grand cathedral of nature is covered with holy 
and beautiful inscriptions, some overlaid, others almost 
defaced, but all capable of being interpreted in the light 
in w r hich they were first written. New spirits however 



BY DR. GUMMING. 



XXIX 



are coming forth, every day and crowding to add their 
contributions to that brightening conclusion that the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the author and 
maker of heaven and earth. Paths discovered by the 
illustrious subject of these remarks are trodden by in- 
creasing numbers of earnest and pious men, and in the 
course of a few years the disclosures familiar to the 
popular mind will render the maturest discoveries even 
of Chalmers of no fresh or remarkable interest. Yet 
the reflecting mind will look back with admiration to 
a man who by the splendour of his eloquence and the 
intensity of his spirit called attention to long neglected 
subjects, and vindicated for the Christian philosopher a 
place among the savans of the world worthy of his great 
themes. 

It was preeminently the mission of Chalmers to shew 
that Christianity was not behind the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and to prove that he who accepted the sublime but 
humbling truths of the Great Redeemer was wise in 
the highest sense. This was always true. But at the 
beginning of the present century it needed a master 
spirit to make the world see it, and that spirit was 
Dr. Chalmers. 

One great value of the writings of Chalmers is the 
supply of materials of thought and illustration which 
they furnish to humbler minds. In this way his sermons 
have penetrated the theology of every land, and have been 
re-produced in endless variety of shape and language. 



XXX 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE 



In his writings as in a mine is rich and precious ore. The 
best rectories and vicarages of England and the most 
enlightened manses of Scotland are the mints in which 
the ore is still coined and reduced to currency. Useful- 
ness is after all the highest proof of genius. He is the 
greatest man who is most useful. Let us be thankful 
that Chalmers in his works is as useful as Chalmers in 
his pulpit. Being dead he yet speaks, and awakens 
echoes in the hearts of increasing numbers of every 
land. 

It is undesirable to refer to the last five or six years 
of his life, or to the unhappy and unprofitable disputes 
into which the great and good man was seduced. Alike 
for the reputation of Chalmers and the amount and 
force of his religious influence, his biographer would 
have done well to have closed his life with the third 
volume, and to have left to the inquisition of the curious 
in after ages the share of sour and unhealthy controversy 
forced upon a genial spirit at the sacrifice of past con- 
sistency and present peace. Years, however, are doing 
what ecclesiastics cannot prevent or resist, — diluting the 
interest originally felt, and awakening the most ardent 
disputants of 1843 to a sense of the disproportion of 
their noise and excitement to the matter in dispute, 
and thus healing differences, and bringing the good and 
wise to " one mind in a house." 

He died suddenly in 1847. His sudden death was 
sudden glory. His character is well given in the fol- 



BY DR. CUMMIXG. 



xxxi 



lowing recent critique in the Quarterly Review, and 
with it we conclude these few remarks. 

(i Such was the sudden but calm termination of a career as 
brilliant, as varied, certainly as eccentric — perhaps as useful 
— as has ever been run by one placed in the comparatively 
humble station of a Scottish parish minister. That po- 
pular enthusiasm made at the time a great deal too much 
of Chalmers his warmest admirers will now, we suppose, 
acknowledge. His style is generally turgid, often confused, 
unnecessarily disfigured by uncouth phrase and words 
coined for the nonce, and remarkable for nothing more than 
the perpetual repetition of some favourite idea in terms 
which seem intended to create in the unobservant reader a 
persuasion that new truths are brought before him. But 
there is a potency in it, notwithstanding, which carries us 
along — often, indeed, against the better pleadings of our 
judgment. In truth, we consider him one of the poorest 
reasoners, both as a moralist and a divine, that ever strove to 
convey his own views of things to the mind of others ; and 
of his political economy experience has long since shewn 
that it is both based and built up upon a delusion. Of his 
gigantic powers as a pidpit orator there can indeed be no 
doubt ; there was a fervour in his manner, a persuasiveness 
in his tone, a charm even in the coarse Fife accent, of which 
he never got rid, that arrested the attention and kept it 
fixed on the preacher all the time that he was speaking ; 
and if, at the close of the discourse, the auditors sometimes 
failed of determining the exact point which it was de- 
signed to establish, they never separated without having 



xxxii 



BIOGRAPHICAL PREEACE. 



received a strong general impulse to good. Nor was his 
influence less effective in private conference than in public 
appeals. Whatever he took up, he took up in earnest, and 
there is a magic in earnestness which rarely fails of going 
much further with such as observe it [thm any extent of 
argument, be it ever so logical." 



TO THE 

RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 

CHAELES JAMES, 
LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 



My Lord, 

Your Lordship's personal kindness to myself 
would alone have inclined me to solicit for this work 
the honour of your patronage and name. 

"But I must further confess the peculiar satisfaction 
which I feel, in offering it as a tribute and a public 
acknowledgment of my admiration for an order of men, 
who, more than all others, have enriched by their 
labours the moral and theological literature of Eng- 
land. 

In the prosecution of that arduous and hitherto 
almost unattempted theme which the late President of 
the Royal Society has, by your Lordship's recommenda- 
tion, assigned to me, I have derived greater aid from 
the views and reasonings of Bishop Butler, than I have 
been able to find besides, in the whole range of our 
existent authorship. 

c 



xxxiv 



DEDICATION. 



With this powerful aid I commenced the high inves- 
tigation to which your Lordship has called me. To 
imagine that I have completed it, would be to forget 
at once the fulness of the Creation, and the finitude of 
the Creature. "Whatever the department of Nature 
may be which we explore, in quest of evidence for the 
perfections of its Author, there is no inquirer, though 
even of the most transcendent powers, who shall ever 
attain the satisfaction of having traversed the whole 
length and breadth of the land. He will have but 
entered and proceeded a certain way, within the margin 
of a territory, whose riches are inexhaustible. 

That your Lordship may long continue, by your zeal 
and talents and lofty erudition, to sustain the honours, 
and to promote the vital good, of our Religious Estab- 
lishments in this Empire, is the fervent desire and 
prayer of 

My Lord, 
Your Lordship's most obliged 
and obedient Servant, 

THOMAS CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh, May 13, 1833. 



NOTICE. 



The Series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is 
published under the following circumstances : — 

The Right Honourable and Reveeexd Eea^cis 
Henet, Eaee of Bbidqewateb, died in the month of 
February. 1829 ; and by his last Will and Testament, bearing 
date the 25th Gf February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees 
therein named to invest in the public funds the sum of 
Eight Thousand Pounds Sterling : this sum, with the ac- 
cruing dividends thereon, to be held at the disposal of the 
President, for the time being, of the Soyal Society of 
London, to be paid to the person or persons nominated by 
him. The Testator further directed, that the person or 
persons selected by the said President should be appointed 
to write, print, and publish, one thousand copies of a work 
On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested 
in the Creation; illustrating such icork by all reasonable 
arguments — as for instance the variety and formation of 
God's creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral king- 
doms ; the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion ; the 
construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of 
other arguments ; as also by discoveries, ancient and modern, 
in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of literature. He 
desired, moreover, that the profits arising from the sale of 
the works so published should be paid to the authors of the 
works. 

The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, 
Esq., requested the assistance of his Grace the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and of the Bishop of London, in determining 
upon the best mode of carrying into effect the intentions of 
the Testator. Acting with their advice, and with the con- 
currence of a nobleman immediately connected with the 
deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert appointed the following eight 
gentlemen to write Treatises on the different branches of 
the subject as here stated : — 



XXTO NOTICE. 

THOMAS CHALMEES, D.D. LL.D. 

Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. 

ON THE POWER, "WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OE GOD, AS MANI- 
EESTED US" THE ADAPTATION OE EXTERNAL NATURE TO 
THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OE MAN- 
JOHN KIDD, M.D. E.E.S. 

Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OE EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE 
PHYSICAL CONDITION OE MAN. 

. 

THE EEV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M.A. E.E.S. 

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS CONSIDERED WITH 
REFERENCE TO NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

SIE CHAELES BELL, K.G.H. E.E.S.L. & E. 

THE HAND : ITS MECHANISM AND TITAL ENDOWMENTS AS 
EYINCING DESIGN. 

PETEE MAEK EOGrET, M.D. 

Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society. 
ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 

THE EEV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D.D. E.E.S. 

Canon of Christ's Church, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford. 
ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 

THE EEV. WILLIAM KIEBY, M.A. E.E.S. 

ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OE ANIMALS. 

WILLIAM PEOUT, M.D. E.E.S. 

ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE EUNCTION 
OE DIGESTION. 



PEEFACE. 



It is an incongruous things when there is any want of 
conformity between the subject matter of an essay, and 
its title. The object of this explanatory preface is to 
show that it is an incongruity into which we have not 
fallen. 

In the first place, we were not in fair circumstances 
for expounding the adaptation of external nature to the 
mental constitution of man, till we had made manifest 
in some degree what that constitution is. There is no 
distinct labourer in that conjunct demonstration of the 
Divine attributes which is now being offered to the world, 
to whom this essentially preliminary topic had been 
assigned as the subject of a separate work. It was 
therefore unavoidable, that, to a certain extent, we should 
undertake it ourselves, else, in proceeding to the con- 
struction of our argument, we might have incurred the 
charge of attempting to rear a superstructure, without a 
foundation to rest upon, 

But in the execution of this introductory part of our 
subject, we would scarcely have refrained from noticing 
the indications of Divine wisdom and goodness in our 
mental constitution itself, even though our strictly pro- 
per, because our assigned task, was to point out these 
indications in the adaptation of this constitution to ex- 
ternal nature. We could not forget that the general 
purpose of the work was to exhibit with all possible ful- 
ness the argument for the character of the Deity, as 
grounded on the laws and appearances of nature. But 



xxxviii 



PREFACE. 



we should have left out a very rich and Important track 
of argument, had we forborne all observation on the 
evidence for the Divine perfections, in the structure and 
processes of the mind itself, and confined ourselves to 
the evidence afforded by the relations which the mind 
bore to the external world. In the adaptation of ex- 
ternal nature to man's physical constitution, there are 
many beautiful and decisive indications of a God. But 
prior to these, there is a multitude of distinct indica- 
tions, both in the human anatomy, and the human 
physiology, viewed by themselves, and as separate objects 
of contemplation. And accordingly, in this joint under- 
taking, there have been specific labourers assigned to 
each of these departments. But we have not had the 
advantage of any previous expounder for the anatomy 
of the mind, or the physiology of the mind; and we 
felt that to have left unnoticed all the vivid and various 
inscriptions of a Divinity, which might be collected 
there, would have been to withhold from view some of 
the best attestations in the whole range and economy of 
nature, for the wisdom and benevolence of its great 
Architect. 

But to construct a natural theology on any subject, 
It is not necessary to make of that subject a full 
scientific exposition. The one is as distinct from 
the other, as the study of final is from the study 
of efficient causes — the former often lying patent to 
observation, while the latter may be still involved in 
deepest obscurity. It were a manifest injury to our 
cause, it were to bedim the native lustre of its evidences, 
did we enter with it among the recondite places of the 



PREFACE. 



xxxix 



mental philosophy, and there enwrap it in the ambiguity 
of questions yet unresolved, in the mist of controversies 
yet unsettled. Often, though not always, the argument 
for a God in some phenomenon of nature depends upon 
its reality, and not upon its analysis, or the physical 
mode of its origination — on the undoubted truth that 
so it is, and not on the undetermined, perhaps indeter- 
minable question of how it is. We should not have 
shrunk from the obscurer investigation, had it been at 
all necessary. But that is no reason why time must be 
consumed on matters which are at once obscure and irre- 
levant. It is all the more fortunate that we are not too 
long detained from an entry on our proper task, among 
the depths or the difficulties of any preliminary disqui- 
sition which comes before it — and that the main strength 
of the argument which our mental constitution, taken 
by itself, furnishes to the cause of theism, lies not in 
those subtilties which are apprehended only by few, 
but in certain broad and palpable generalities which are 
recognised by all men. 

But there is another explanation which we deem it 
necessary to make, in order fully to reconcile the actual 
topics of our essay, with the designation which has been 
prefixed to it. 

If by external nature be meant all that is external to 
mind, then the proper subject of our argument is the 
adaptation of the material to the mental world. But if 
by external nature be meant all that is external to one 
individual mind, then would the subject be very greatly 
extended ; for beside the reciprocal influence between 
that individual mind, and all sensible and material things, 



xl 



PREFACE. 



we should consider the reciprocal influence between 
it and all other minds. By this contraction of the idea 
from the mental world to but one individual member of 
it — and this proportional extension in the idea of exter- 
nal nature from the material creation to the whole of 
that living, as well as inanimate creation, by which any 
single man is surrounded — we are introduced not merely 
to the action and reaction which obtain between mind 
and matter ; but, which is far more prolific of evidence 
for a Deity, to the action and reaction which obtain be- 
tween mind and mind. We thus find access to a much 
larger territory, which should otherwise be left unex- 
plored — and have the opportunity of tracing the marks 
of a divine intelligence in the mechanism of human 
society, and in the framework of the social and 
economical systems to which men are conducted, when 
they adhere to that light, and follow the impulses of 
those affections, which God has bestowed on them. 

But in the progress of our argument, we come at 
length to be engaged with the adaptations of external 
nature, even in the most strict and limited sense of the 
term. In the origin and rights of property, as well as 
in the various economic interests of society, we behold 
the purest exemplification of that adjustment which ob- 
tains between the material system of things and man's 
moral nature — and when we proceed to treat of his 
intellectual constitution, it will be found that the har- 
monies between the material and the mental worlds are 
still more numerous, and more palpably indicative of 
that wisdom which originated both, and conformed them 
with exquisite and profound skill to each other. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 

PAST I. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OP EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE 
MORAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 

Chap. I. First General Argument. — On the Supremacy of 

Conscience 38 

II. Second General Argument. — On the Inherent 

Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery of the Vicious 
Affections . .78 

III. Third General Argument. — The Power and 

Operation of Habit 104 

IV. On the General Adaptation of External Nature to 

the Moral Constitution of Man .... 123 
V. On the Special and Subordinate Adaptations of External 

Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man . . 144 
VI. On those Special Affections which conduce to the Civil 

and Political Wellbeing of Society . . . .166 
VII. On those Special Affections which conduce to the Eco- 
nomic Wellbeing" of Society 214 

VIII. On the Relation in which the Special Affections of our 
Nature stand to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration 
given forth by it, both to the Character of Man and 
the Character of God . . . % . . ^51 

IX. Miscellaneous Evidences of Virtuous and Benevolent 
Design, in the Adaptation of External Nature to the 

Moral Constitution of Man 2G3 

d 



xlii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Chap. X. On the Capacities of the World for making" a Virtuous 
Species happy ; and the Argument deducible from 
this, both for the Character of God and the Immor- 
tality of Man 284 



PAET II. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTEENAL NATUEE TO THE 
INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 

Chap. I. Chief Instances of this Adaptation .... 309 

II. On the Connection between the Intellect and the Emotions 346 

III. On the Connection between the Intellect and the Will . 374 

IV. On the Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology . . 402 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



GENERAL A.ST> PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



1. External nature, when spoken of in contradistinction 
to mind, suggests chiefly, if not solely, the idea of the 
material universe. Even though restricted to this limited 
and proper sense of the term, we should still behold the 
proofs of beneficent design in the fitnesses of the one to the 
other ; but far more abundantly and decisively, it must be 
confessed, in the adaptation of external nature to - the 
physical, than in its adaptation to the moral and intellectual 
constitution of man. For fully developing our peculiar 
argument, an enlargement of the meaning commonly affixed 
to external nature seems indispensable,— an enlargement 
that we should not have ventured on, if in so doing we crossed 
the legitimate boundaries of our assigned subject ; and that, 
for the mere purpose of multiplying our topics, or possessing 
ourselves of a wider field of authorship. But the truth is, 
that did we confine our notice to the relations which obtain 
between the world of mind and the world of matter, we 
should be doing injustice to our own theme, by spoiliug it of 
greatly more than half its richness, — beside leaving un- 
occupied certain fertile tracts of evidence, which, if not 
entered upon in our division of the general work, must, as is 
obvious from the nature of the respective tasks, be altogether 
omitted in the conjunct demonstration that is now being 
offered to the public, of the Goodness and Wisdom of the 
Deity. 

2. It is true that, with even but one solitary human mind 

13 



2 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



in midst of the material creation, certain relations could be 
traced between them that would indicate both skill and a 
benevolent purpose on the part of Him who constructed the 
framework of nature, and placed this single occupier within 
its confines. And, notwithstanding this limitation, there 
would still be preserved to us certain striking adaptations in 
the external system of things to the intellectual, and some 
too, though fewer and less noticeable, to the moral consti- 
tution of man. But, born as man obviously is for the com- 
panionship of his fellows, it must be evident that the main 
tendencies and aptitudes of his moral constitution should 
be looked for in connection with his social relationships, with 
the action and reaction which take place between man and the 
brethren of his species. We therefore understand external 
nature to comprehend in it, not merely all that is external 
to mind, but all that is external to the individual pos- 
sessor of a human mind, — who is surrounded not only by an 
economy of complex and extended materialism, but who is 
surrounded by other men and other minds than his own. 
Without this generalized view of external nature, we should 
be left in possession of but scanty materials for evincing its 
adaptation to the moral constitution of man, though an 
ample field of observation would still lie open to us, in unfold - 
ing the aptitude of the human understanding, with its various 
instincts and powers, for the business of physical investi- 
gation. For the purpose then of enhancing our argument, 
or rather of doing but justice to it, we propose to consider 
not merely those relations between mind and matter, but 
those relations between mind and mind, the establishment 
of which attests a wise and beneficent contrivance. We 
shall thus be enabled to enter on a department of obser- 
vation distinct from that of all the other labourers in this 
joint enterprise, — and while their provinces respectively are 



IZSTRODTJCTOBY CHAPTER. 



3 



to trace the Land of a great and good Designer in the 
mechanism of the heavens, or the mechanism of the terres- 
trial physics, or the mechanism of various organic structures 
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; it will be part of 
ours, more especially, to point out the evidences of a forming 
and presiding, and withal benevolent intelligence in the 
mechanism of human society. 

8. We conceive of external nature, then, that it compre- 
hends more than the mute and unconscious materialism, and 
the objective truth — it comprehends also the living society 
by which the possessor of a moral and intellectual constitu- 
tion is surrounded. Did we exclude the latter from our 
regards, we should be keeping out of view a number of as 
wise, and certainly, in the degree that mind is of higher 
consideration than body, of far more beneficial and important 
adaptations than any which are presented to our notice in 
the mechanical, or chemical, or physiological departments of 
creation. Both in the reciprocities of domestic life, and 
in those wider relations, which bind large assemblages of 
men into political and economical systems, we shall discern 
the incontestable marks of a divine wisdom and care ; prin- 
ciples or laws of human nature, in virtue of which the social 
economy moves rightly and prosperously onward, and apart 
from which all would go into derangement ; affinities between 
man and his fellows, that harmonise the individual with the 
general interests, and are obviously designed as provisions 
for the wellbeing both of families and nations. 

4. It might help to guard us against a possible miscon- 
ception, if now, at the outset of our argument, we shall 
distinguish between the moral constitution of man, and that 
moral system of doctrine which embodies in it the outer 
truths or principles of ethical science. The two are as 
distinct from each other, as are the objective and subjective 



4 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



in any quarter of contemplation whatever, and ought no 
more to be confounded than, in optics, the system of visible 
things with the anatomical structure of the eye. The organ 
which perceives or apprehends truth is separate in reality, 
and should be kept separate in thought, from the truth 
which is apprehended ; and thus it is that we should view 
the moral constitution of man and the moral system of virtue 
as diverse and distinct from each other. The one belongs 
to the physiology of the mind, and is collected, like all other 
experimental truth, by a diligent observation of facts and 
phenomena. The other, involving, as it does, those questions 
which relate to the nature of virtue, or to the origin and 
principles of moral obligation, directs the attention of the 
mind to another quarter than to its own processes, and 
presents us with a wholly distinct matter of contemplation. 
The acts of moral judgment or feeling should not be con- 
founded with the objects of moral judgment or feeling, any 
more, in fact, than the rules of logic should be confounded 
with the laws which govern the procedure of the human 
understanding. The question, 6 What is virtue ? ' or c What 
is that which constitutes virtue ? 5 is one thing. The 
question, s What is the mental process by which man takes 
cognizance of virtue ? ' is another. They are as distinct 
from each other as are the principles of good reasoning from 
the processes of the reasoning faculty. It is thus that the 
mental philosophy, whose proper and legitimate province is 
the physics of the mind, should be kept distinct from logic 
and ethics, and the philosophy of taste. The question, 
'What is beautiful in scenery?' or c What is right in 
character ? ' or ' What is just in argument ? ' is distinct 
from the question, £ What is the actual and historical pro- 
cedure of the mind in addressing itself to these respective 
objects of contemplation ? 5 as distinct, indeed, as the ques- 



I2s TEODTTCTOKY CHAPTER. 



5 



tion of ( Quid est,' is from £ Quid oportet ;' or as the question 
of f What is.' from 1 What ought to be. 5# A sound objective 
system of ethics may be framed, irrespective of any attention 
that we give to man's moral constitution. A sound system 
of logic may be framed, irrespective of any attention that we 
give to man's intellectual constitution. And on the other 
hand, however obscure or uusettled these sciences may still 
be, and more especially, whatever controversies may yet 
obtain respecting the nature and the elementary principles 
of virtue, — such notwithstanding, may be the palpable and 
ascertained facts in the nature and history of subjective man, 
that, both on his mental constitution, and on the adaptation 
thereto of external nature, there might remain a clear and 
unquestionable argument for the power and wisdom and 
goodness of God. 

5. Having thus referred our argument, not to the con- 
stitution of morality in the abstract, but to the constitution 
of man's moral nature — a concrete and substantive reality, 
made up of facts that come within the domain of obser- 
vation — let us now consider how it is that natural theology 
proceeds with her demonstrations, on other constitutions and 
other mechanisms in creation, that we may learn from this 
in what manner we should commence and prosecute our 
labours, on that very peculiar, we had almost said, untried 
field of investigation which has been assigned to us. 

6. The chief then, or at least the usual subject-matter of 

* See the introduction to Sir James Macintosh's Ethical Dissertation. 
" The purpose of the physical sciences, throughout all their provinces, is 
to answer the question, ' What is V The purpose of the moral sciences is 
to answer the question, * Wluit ought to be?' " — It should be well kept in 
view, that mental philosophy is one province of the physical sciences, and 
belongs to the first of these two departments, being" distinct from mora) 
philosophy, which forms the second of them. 



G 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



the argument for the wisdom and goodness of God, is the 
obvious adaptation wherewith creation teems, throughout all 
its borders, of means to a beneficial end. And it is manifest 
that the argument grows in strength with the number and 
complexity of these means. The greater the number of 
independent circumstances which must meet together for the 
production of a useful result — then, in the actual fact of 
their concurrence, is there less of probability for its being 
the effect of chance, and more of evidence for its being 
the effect of design. A beneficent combination of three 
independent elements is not so impressive or so strong an 
argument for a Divinity, as a similar combination of six or 
ten such elements. And every mathematician, conversant 
in the doctrine of probabilities, knows how, with every 
addition to the number of these elements, the argument 
grows in force and intensity, with a rapid and multiple 
augmentation — till at length, in some of the more intricate 
and manifold conjunctions, those more particularly having an 
organic character and structure, could we but trace them to 
an historical commencement, we should find, on the princi- 
ples of computation alone, that the argument against their 
being fortuitous products, and for their being the products 
of a scheming and skilful artificer, was altogether over- 
powering. 

7. We might apply this consideration to various depart- 
ments in nature. In astronomy, the independent elements 
seem but few and simple, which must meet together for the 
composition of a planetarium. One uniform law of gravi- 
tation, with a force of projection impressed by one impulse 
on each of the bodies, could suffice to account for the 
revolutions of the planets round the sun, and of the satellites 
around their primaries, along with the diurnal revolution of 
each, and the varying inclinations of the axis to the planes 



rXTEODTTCTOET CHAPTER, 



7 



of their respective orbits. Out of such few contingencies, 
the actual orrery of the heavens has been framed. But in 
anatomy, to fetch the opposite illustration from another 
science, what a complex and crowded combination of indi- 
vidual elements must first be effected, ere we obtain the 
composition of an eye, — for the completion of which me- 
chanism, there must not only be a greater number of separate 
laws, as of refraction and muscular action and secretion ; but 
a vastly greater number of separate and distinct parts, as the 
lenses and the retina and the optic nerve, and the eyelid and 
the eye-lashes, and the various muscles wherewith this 
delicate organ is so curiously beset, and each of which is 
indispensable to its perfection, or to the right performance 
of its functions. It is passing marvellous that we should 
have more intense evidence for a God in the construction of 
an eye, than in the construction of the mighty planetarium 
— or that, within less than the compass of a handbreadth, we 
should find in this lower world a more pregnant and legible 
inscription of the Divinity, than can be gathered from a broad 
and magnificent survey of the skies, lighted up though they 
be, with the glories and the wonders of astronomy. 

8. But while nothing can be more obvious than that the 
proof for design in any of the natural formations, is the 
stronger, in proportion to the number of separate and inde- 
pendent elements which have been brought together, and each 
of which contributes essentially to its usefulness — we have 
long held it of prime importance to the theistical argument, 
that clear exhibition should be made of a distinction not 
generally adverted to, which obtains between one set of 
these elements and another. We shall illustrate this by a 
material, ere we apply it to a mental workmanship. 

9. There is, then, a difference of great argumentative 
importance in this whole question, between the Laws of 



s 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTEE. 



Matter and the Dispositions of Matter. In astronomy, for 
example, when attending to the mechanism of the planetary 
system, we should instance at most but two laws —the law 
of gravitation ; and perhaps the law of perseverance, on the 
part of all bodies, whether in a state of rest or of motion, 
till interrupted by some external cause. But had we ta 
state the dispositions of matter in the planetary system, we 
should instance a greater number of particulars. We should 
describe the arrangement of its various parts, whether in 
respect to situation, or magnitude, or figure—as the position 
of a large and luminous mass in the centre, and of the vastly 
smaller but opake masses which circulated around it, but at 
such distances as not to interfere with each other, and of 
the still smaller secondary bodies which revolved about the 
planets. And we should include in this description the 
impulses in one direction, and nearly in one plane, given to 
the different moving bodies : and so regulated, as to secure 
the movement of each, in an orbit of small eccentricity. 
The dispositions of matter in the planetary system were 
fixed at the original setting up of the machine. The laws 
of matter were ordained for the working of the machine. 
The former, that is, the dispositions, make up the frame- 
work, or what may be termed the apparatus of the system. 
The latter, that is, the laws, uphold the performance of it. 

10. N ow the tendency of atheistical writers is to reason 
exclusively on the laws of matter, and to overlook its 
dispositions. Could all the beauties and benefits of the 
astronomical system be referred to the single law of gravita- 
tion, it would greatly reduce the strength of the argument 
for a designing cause. La Place, as if to fortify still more 
the atheism of such a speculation, endeavoured to demon- 
strate of this law — that, in respect of its being inversely 
proportional to the square of the distance from the centre 



IKTKODTJCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



9 



it is an essential property of matter. La Grange had 
previously established — that but for such a proportion, or 
by the deviation of a thousandth part from it, the planetary 
system would go into derangement — or, in other words, that 
the law, such as it is, was essential to the stability of the 
present mundane constitution. La Place would have ac- 
credited the law, the unconscious and unintelligent law, that 
thing according to him of blind necessity, with the whole of 
this noble and beautiful result — overlooking what La Grange 
held to be indispensable as concurring elements in his de- 
monstration of it — certain dispositions along with the law — 
such as the movement of all the planets, first in one direction 
second, nearly in one plane, and then in nearly circular 
orbits. AVe are aware that, according to the discoveries, or 
rather perhaps to the guesses, of some later analysts, the 
three last circumstances might be dispensed with ; and yet, 
notwithstanding, the planetary system, its errors still re- 
in aining periodical, would in virtue of the single law oscillate 
around a mean state that should be indestructible and ever- 
lasting. Should this come to be exclusively settled doctrine 
in the science, it will extenuate, we admit, the argument for 
a designing cause in the formation of the planetarium. But 
it will not annihilate that argument — for there do remain 
certain palpable utilities in the dispositions as well as laws 
of the planetary system, acknowledged by all the astro- 
nomers ; such as the vastly superior weight and quantity of 
matter accumulated in its centre, and the local establishment 
there of that great fountain of light and heat from which 
the surrounding worlds receive throughout the whole of 
their course an equable dispensation. What a mal-adjust- 
ment would it have been, had the luminous and the opake 
matter changed places in the firmament ; or the planets, by 
the eccentricity of their orbits, been subject to such vicissi- 



10 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



tudes of temperature as would certainly, in our own at 
least, have entailed destruction both, on the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms ! 

11. But whatever defect or doubtfulness of evidence there 
may be in the mechanism of the heavens— this is amply made 
up for in a more accessible mechanism, near at hand. If 
either the dispositions of matter in the former mechanism be 
so few, or the demonstrable results of its single law be so 
independent of them, that the agency of design rather than 
of necessity or chance be less manifest than it otherwise 
would be in the astronomical system — nothing on the other 
hand can exceed the force and concentration of that proof, 
which is crowded to so marvellous a degree of enhancement 
within the limits of the anatomical system. It is this which 
enables us to draw so much weightier an argument for a 
God, from the construction of an eye than from the con- 
struction of a planetarium. And here it is quite palpable, 
that it is in the dispositions of matter more than in the laws 
of matter, where the main strength of the argument lies, 
though we hear much more of the wisdom of Nature's laws, 
than of the wisdom of her collocations.* Now it is true that 

* This distinction between the laws and collocations of matter is over- 
looked by atheistical writers, as in the following specimen from the " Sys- 
t6me de la Nature" of Mirabaud. " These prejudiced dreamers," speaking 
of believers in a God, " are in an ecstasy at the sight of the periodical 
motion of the planets ; at the order of the stars ; at the various productions 
of the earth; at the astonishing harmony in the component parts of 
animals. In that moment, however, they forget the laws of motion; the 
power of gravitation ; the forces of attraction and repulsion ; they assign 
all these striking phenomena to unknown causes, of which they have no 
one substantive idea." 

When Professor Robinson felt alarmed by the attempted demonstration 
of La Place, that the law of gravitation was an essential property of matter, 
lest the cause of natural theology should be endangered by it — he might 
have recollected that the main evidence for a Divinity lies not in the laws 



rSTKODrCTOEY CHAPTER. 



11 



the law of refraction is indispensable to the facility of vision : 
bnt the laws indispensable to this result are greatly out- 
numbered by the dispositions which are indispensable to it 
— such as the rightly sized and shaped lenses of the eye ; and 
the rightly placed retina spread out behind them, and at the 
precise distance where the indispensable picture of external 
nature might be formed, and presented as it were for the 
information of the occupier within ; and then, the variety 
and proper situation of the numerous muscles, each intrusted 
with an important function, and all of them contributing 
to the power and perfection of this curious and manifoldly 
complicated organ. It is not so much the endowment of 
matter with certain properties, as the arrangement of it into 
certain parts, that bespeaks here the hand of an artist ; and 
this will be found true of the anatomical structure in all its 
departments. It is not the mere chemical property of the 
gastric juice that impresses the belief of contrivance : but 
the presence of the gastric juice, in the very situation whence 
it comes forth to act with advantage on the food, when 
received into the stomach, and there submitted to a diges- 
tive process for the nourishment of the animal economy. It 
is well to distinguish these two things. If we but say of 
matter that it is furnished with such powers as make it 
subservient to many useful results, we keep back the 
strongest and most unassailable part of the argument for 
a God. It is greatly more pertinent and convincing to 
say of matter, that it is distributed into such parts as to 
ensure a right direction and a beneficial application for its 

of matter, but in their collocations — because of the utter inadequacy in the 
existing laws to have originated the existing- collocations of the material 
world. So that if ever a time was when these collocations were not — there 
is no virtue in the laws that can account for their commencement, or that 
supersedes the fiat of a God. 



12 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTEE. 



powers. It is not so much in the establishment of certain 
laws for matter, that we discern the aims or the purposes of 
intelligence, as in certain dispositions of matter, that put it 
in the way of being usefully operated upon by the laws. 
Insomuch, that though we conceded to the atheist, the 
eternity of matter, and the essentially inherent character of 
all its laws— we could still point out to him, in the manifold 
adjustments of matter, its adjustments of place and figure 
and magnitude, the most impressive signatures of a Deity. 
And what a countless variety of such adjustments within the 
compass of an animal, or even a vegetable framework ! In 
particular, what an amount and condensation of evidence 
for a God in the workmanship of the human body ! "What 
bright and convincing lessons of theology might man (would 
he but open his eyes) read on his own person — that micro- 
cosm of divine art, where, as in the sentences of a perfect 
epitome, he might trace in every lineament or member the 
finger and authorship of the Godhead ! 

12. In the performances of human art, the argument for 
design that is grounded on the useful dispositions of matter, 
stands completely disentangled from the argument that is 
grounded on the useful laws of matter — for in every imple- 
ment or piece of mechanism constructed by the hands of 
man, it is in the latter apart from the former, that the indi- 
cations of contrivance wholly and exclusively lie. We do not 
accredit man with the establishment of any laws for matter 
— yet he leaves enough by which to trace the operations of 
his intelligence in the collocations of matter. He does not 
give to matter any of its properties ; but he arranges it into 
parts — and by such arrangement alone, does he impress upon 
his workmanship the incontestable marks of design ; not in 
that he has communicated any powers to matter, but in that 
he has intelligently availed himself of these powers, and 



rfTTKODUCTOBY CHAPTER. 



13 



directed them to an obviously beneficial residt. The watch- 
maker did not give its elasticity to the main-spring, nor its 
regularity to the balance-wheel, nor its transparency to the 
glass, nor the momentum of its varying forces to the levers 
of his mechanism, — yet is the whole replete with the marks 
of intelligence notwithstanding, announcing throughout the 
hand of a maker who had an eye on all these properties, and 
assigned the right place and adjustment to each of them, in 
fashioning and bringing together the parts of an instrument 
for the measurement and the indication of time, ^ow, the 
same distinction can be observed in all the specimens of 
natural mechanism. It is true that we accredit the author 
of these with the creation and laws of matter, as well as its 
dispositions ; but this does not hinder its being in the latter 
and not in the former, where the manifestations of skill are 
most apparent, or where the chief argument for a Divinity lies. 
The truth is, that mere laws, without collocations, would have 
afforded no security against a turbid and disorderly chaos. 
One can imagine of all the substantive things which enter into 
the composition of a watch, that they may have been huddled 
together, without shape, and without collocation, into a little 
chaos, or confused medley ; — where, in full possession of all 
the properties which belong to the matter of the instrument, 
but without its dispositions, every evidence of skill would 
have been wholly obliterated. And it is even so with all 
the substantive things which enter into the composition of a 
world. Take but their forms and collocations away from 
them, and this goodly universe would instantly lapse into a 
heaving and disorderly chaos — yet without stripping matter 
of any of its properties or powers. There might still, though 
operating with random and undirected activity, be the laws 
of impulse, and gravitation, and magnetism, and tempera- 
ture, and light, and the forces of chemistry, and even those 



14 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



physiological tendencies, "which, however abortive in a state 
of primitive rudeness, or before the Spirit of a Grod moved 
on the face of the waters, w r aited but a right distribution 
of the parts of matter, to develop into the full effect and 
establishment of animal and vegetable kingdoms. The thing- 
wanted for the evolution of this chaos into an orderly and 
beneficial system is not the endowing of matter with right 
properties ; but the forming of it into things of right shape 
and magnitude, and the marshalling of these into right places. 
This last alone would suffice for bringing harmony out of 
confusion ; and, apart altogether from the first , or without 
involving ourselves in the metaphysical obscurity of those 
questions which relate to the origination of matter, and to 
the distinction between its arbitrary and essential proper- 
ties, might we discern, in the mere arrangements of matter, 
the most obvious and decisive signatures of the artist hand 
which has been employed on it. 

13. That is a fine generalization by the late Professor 
Robinson, of Edinburgh, which ranges all philosophy into 
two sciences — one the science of contemporaneous nature ; 
the other the science of successive nature. "When the 
material world is viewed according to this distinction, the 
w r hole science of its contemporaneous phenomena is compre- 
hended by him under the general name of Natural History, 
which takes cognizance of all those characters in external 
nature that exist together at the instant, and which may be 
described without reference to time — as smell, and colour, 
and size, and weight, and form, and relation of parts, whether 
of the simple inorganic or more complex organic structures. 
But w'hen the elements of time and motion are introduced, 
we are then presented with the phenomena of successive 
nature ; and the science that embraces these is, in contradis- 
tinction to the former, termed Natural Philosophy. This 



IXTKODrCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



15 



latter science may be separated or subdivided further into 
natural philosophy, strictly and indeed usually so called, 
whose province it is to investigate those changes which take 
effect in bodies by motions that are sensible and measure- 
able ; and chemistry, or the science of those changes which 
take effect in bodies by motions which are not sensible, or at 
least not measureable, and which therefore cannot be made 
the subjects of mathematical computation or reasoning. This 
last, again, is capable of being still further partitioned into 
the science which investigates the changes effected by means 
of insensible motion in all inorganic matter, or chemistry 
strictly and usually so called; and the science of physiology, 
whose province it is to investigate the like changes that take 
place in organic bodies, whether of the animal or vegetable 
kingdoms. 

14. Or, the distinction between these two sciences of con- 
temporaneous and successive nature may otherwise be stated 
thus : — The one, or natural history, is conversant with 
objects — the other, or natural philosophy in its most com- 
prehensive meaning, is conversant with events. It is obvious 
that the dispositions of matter come within the province of 
the former science — while the laws of matter, or the various 
moving forces by which it is actuated, fall more properly 
under the inquiries of the latter science. Now, adopting 
this nomenclature, we hold it a most important assertion for 
the cause of natural theology, that should all the present 
arrangements of our existing natural history be destroyed, 
there is no power in the laws of our existing natural philo- 
sophy to replace them. Or, in other words, if ever a time 
was, when the structure and dispositions of matter, under 
the present economy of things, were not — there is no force 
known in nature, and no combination of forces, that can 
account for their commencement. The laws of nature may 



16 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



keep up the working of the machinery — but they did not and 
could not set up the machine. The human species, for ex- 
ample, may be uph olden, through an indefinite series of ages, 
by the established law of transmission— but were the 
species destroyed, there are no observed powers of nature 
by which it could again be originated. For the continuance 
of the system and of all its operations, we might imagine a 
sufficiency in the laws of nature ; but it is the first construc- 
tion of the system which so palpably calls for the interven- 
tion of an artificer, or demonstrates so powerfully the fiat 
and finger of a God. 

15. This distinction between nature's laws and nature's 
collocations is mainly lost sight of in those speculations of 
geology, the object of which is to explain the formation of 
new systems emerging from the wreck of old ones. They 
proceed on the sufficiency of nature's laws for building up 
the present economy of things out of the ruins of a former 
economy, which the last great physical catastrophe on the 
face of our earth had overthrown. Now, in these ruins, 
viewed as materials for the architecture of a renovated 
world, there did reside all those forces, by which the pro- 
cesses of the existing economy are upholden ; but the geolo- 
gists assign to them a function wholly distinct from this, 
when they labour to demonstrate that by laws, and laws 
alone, the framework of our existing economy was put 
together. It is thus that they would exclude the agency 
of a God from the transition between one system, or one 
formation, and another, although it be precisely at such 
transition when this agency seems most palpably and pecu- 
Jiarly called for. "We feel assured that the necessity for a 
divine intervention, and, of course, the evidence of it, would 
have been more manifest, had the distinction between the 
laws of matter and its collocations been more formally an- 



IZSTKODTCTOEY CHAPTER. 



17 



nonnced, or more fully proceeded on by the writers on 
natural theism. And yet it is a distinction that must have 
been present to the mind of our great Xewton, vrho ex- 
pressly affirms that a mechanism of wonderful structure 
could not arise by the mere laws of nature. In his third 
printed letter to Eentley, he says, that " the growth of new 
systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a divine 
power, seems to me apparently absurd;" and that " the 
system of nature was set in order in the beginning, with 
respect to size, figure, proportions, and properties, by the 
counsels o % f God's own intelligence." In the last extract, 
by his admission of the properties along with the dispositions 
of matter, he somewhat confounds or disguises again the im- 
portant distinction which, at times, he had clearly in his 
view.* 

16. But one precious fruit of the recent geological dis- 
coveries may be gathered from the testimony which they 
afford to the destruction of so many terrestrial economies 
now gone by, and the substitution of the existing one in 
their place. If there be truth at all in the speculations of 
this science, there is nothing which appears to have been 
more conclusively established by them, than a definite 
origin or commencement for the present animal and vegc- 

* Towards the end of the third book of Newton's Optics, we have the 
following- very distinct testimony upon this subject : — " For it became 
Him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it is un- 
philosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that 
it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature ; though bring- 
once formed, it may continue by those laws for many ag-es." 

This disposition to resolve the collocations into the laws of nature proves, 
in the expressive language of Granville Penn, how strenuously, not " phy- 
sical science," but only some of its disciples have " laboured to exclude the 
Creator from the details of his own creation ; straining- every nerve of 
ing-enuity to ascribe them all to secondary causes* 1 

C 



18 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



table races. JSTow we know what it is which upholds the 
whole of the physiological system that is now before our 
eyes, — even the successive derivation of each individual 
member from a parent of its own likeness ; but we see no 
force in nature, and no complication of forces, which can 
tell us what it was that originated the system. It is at this 
passage in the history of nature, where we meet with such 
pregnant evidence for the interposition of a designing 
cause, — an evidence, it will be seen, of prodigious density 
and force, when we compute the immense number and 
variety of those aptitudes, whether of form, or magnitude, 
or relative position, which enter into the completion of an 
organic structure. It is in the numerical superiority of the 
distinct collocations to the distinct laws of matter, that the 
superior evidence of the former lies. We do not deny that 
there is argument for a Grod in the number of beneficial, 
while, at the same time, distinct and independent laws 
wherewith matter is endowed. "We only affirm a million- 
fold intensity of argument in the indefinitely greater num- 
ber of beneficial, and at the same time distinct and inde- 
pendent number of collocations whereinto matter has been 
arranged. In this respect the human body may be said to 
present a more close and crowded and multifarious inscrip- 
tion of the Divinity, than any single object within the com- 
pass of visible nature. It is instinct throughout with the 
evidence of a builder's hand ; and thus the appropriate men 
of science, who can expound those dispositions of matter 
which constitute the anatomy of its framework, and which 
embrace the physiology of its various processes, are on 
secure and firm vantage ground for an impressive demon- 
stration. 

17. Now there are many respects in which the evidence 
for a Q-od, given forth by the constitution of the human 



I>"TBODrCTOEY CHAPTEK. 



19 



body, differs from the evidence given forth by the constitu- 
tion of the human spirit. It is with the latter evidence 
that we have more peculiarly to deal ; but at present we shall 
only advert to a few of its distinct and special characteris- 
tics. The subject will at length open into greater detail 
and development before us, — yet a brief preliminary expo- 
sition may be useful at the outset, should it only convey 
some notion of the difficulties and particularities of the 
task which has been put into our hands. 

18. A leading distinction between the material and the 
mental fabrications is, the far greater complexity of the 
former, at least greater to all human observation. Into 
that system of means which has been formed for the object 
of seeing, there enter at least twenty separate contingencies, 
the absence of any one of which would either derange the 
proper function of the eye, or altogether destroy it. We 
have no access to aught like the observation of a mental 
structure, and all of which our consciousness informs us is 
a succession of mental phenomena. Now in these we are 
sensible of nothing but a very simple antecedent followed 
up, and that generally on the instant, by a like simple con- 
sequent. "We have the feeling, and still more the purpose 
of benevolence, followed up by complacency. We have the 
feeling or purpose, and still more the execution of malig- 
nity, or rather the recollection of that execution, followed 
up by remorse. However manifold the apparatus may be 
which enables us to see an external object — when the sight 
itself, instead of the consequent in a material succession 
becomes the antecedent in a mental one ; or, in other words, 
when it passes from a material to a purely mental process ; 
then, as soon, does it pass from the complex into the simple j 
and, accordingly, the sight of distress is followed up, without 
the intervention of any curiously elaborated mechanism that 



20 



IKTBODTJCTOKY CHAPTEK. 



we are at all conscious of, by an immediate feeling of com- 
passion. These examples will, at least, suffice to mark a 
strong distinction between the two inquiries, and to shew 
that the several arguments drawn from each must at least be 
formed of very different materials. 

19. There are two distinct ways in which the mind can be 
viewed, and which constitute different modes of conception, 
rather than diversities of substantial and scientific doctrine. 
The mind may either be regarded as a congeries of different 
faculties ; or as a simple and indivisible substance, with the 
susceptibility of passing into different states. By the former 
mode of viewing it, the memory, and the judgment, and the 
conscience, and the will, are conceived of as so many distinct 
but co-existent parts of mind, which is thus represented to 
us somewhat in the light of an organic structure, having 
separate members, each for the discharge of its own appro- 
priate mental function or exercise. By the latter, which we 
deem also the more felicitous mode of viewing it, these 
distinct mental acts, instead of being referred to distinct 
parts of the mind, are conceived of as distinct acts of the 
whole mind, — insomuch that the whole mind remembers, or 
the whole mind judges, or the whole mind wills, or, in short, 
the whole mind passes into various intellectual states or 
states of emotion, according to the circumstances by which 
at the time it is beset, or to the present nature of its 
employment. "We might thus either regard the study of 
mind as a study in contemporaneous nature ; and we should 
then, in the delineation of its various parts, be assigning to 
it a natural history, — or we might regard the study of mind 
as a study in successive nature ; and we should then, in the 
description of its various states, be assigning to it a natural 
philosophy. When such a phrase as the anatomy of the 
human mind is employed by philosophers, we may safely 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



21 



guess that the former is the conception which they are 
inclined to form of it.* When such a phrase, again, as the 
physiology of the human mind is made use of, the latter is 
the conception by which, in all probability, it has been sug- 
gested. It is thus that Dr. Thomas Brown designates the 
science of mind as mental physiology. "With him, in fact, it 
is altogether a science of sequences, his very analysis being 
the analysis of results, and not of compounds. 

20. ow, in either view of our mental constitution there 
is the same strength of evidence for a G-od. It matters not 
for this, whether the mind be regarded as consisting of so 
many useful parts, or as endowed with as many useful pro- 
perties. It is the number, whether the one or other, of these 
— out of which the product is formed of evidence for a 
designing cause. The only reason why the useful disposi- 
tions of matter are so greatly more prolific of this evidence 
than the useful laws of matter, is, that the former so greatly 
outnumber the latter. Of the twenty independent circum- 
stances which enter into beneficial concurrence in the 
formation of an eye, that each of them should be found in a 
situation of optimism, and none of them occupying either an 
indifferent or a hurtful position — it is this which speaks so 
emphatically against the hypothesis of a random distribution, 
and for the hypothesis of an intelligent order. Yet this is 
but one out of the many like specimens, wherewith the 
animal economy thickens and teems in such marvellous 
profusion. By the doctrine of probabilities, the mathematical 
evidence, in this question between the two suppositions of 
intelligence or chance, will be found, even on many a single 
organ of the human framework, to preponderate vastly more 
than a million-fold on the side of the former. We do not 

* It is under this conception, too, that writers propose to lay down a 
map of the human faculties. 



22 



INTBODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



affirm of the human mind that it is so destitute of all com- 
plication and variety, as to be deficient altogether in this sort 
of evidence. Let there be but six laws or ultimate facts in 
the mental constitution, with the circumstance of each of 
them being beneficial; and this of itself would yield no 
inconsiderable amount of precise and calculable proof, for our 
mental economy being a formation of contrivance, rather 
than one that is fortuitous or of blind necessity. It will at 
once be seen, however, w T hy mind, just from its greater 
simplicity than matter, should contribute so much less to the 
support of natural theism, of that definite and mathematical 
evidence which is founded on combination. 

21. But although, in the mental department of creation,, 
the argument for a God that is gathered out of such materials 
is not so strong as in the other great department —yet it- 
does furnish a peculiar argument of its own, which, though 
not grounded on mathematical data, and not derived from a 
lengthened and logical process of reasoning, is of a highly 
effective and practical character notwithstanding. It has 
not less in it of the substance, though it may have greatly 
less in it of the semblance, of demonstration, that it consists 
of but one step between the premises and the conclusion. 
It is briefly, but cannot be more clearly and emphatically 
expressed than in the following sentence : — " He that formed 
the eye, shall he not see ? He that planted the ear, shall he 
not hear ? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not 
know?" That the parent cause of intelligent beings shall 
be itself intelligent is an aphorism, w r hich, if not demonstrable 
in the forms of logic, carries in the very announcement of it 
a challenging power over the acquiescence of almost all 
spirits. It is a thing of instant conviction, as if seen in the 
light of its own evidence, more than a thing of lengthened 
and laborious proof. It may be stigmatized as a mere 



IXTKODUCTOET CHAPTEB. 



23 



impression — nevertheless the most of intellects go as readily 
along with it, as they would from one contiguous step to 
another of many a stately argumentation. If it cannot be 
exhibited as the conclusion of a syllogism, it is because of its 
own inherent right to be admitted there as the major 
proposition. To proscribe every such truth, or to disown it 
from being truth, merely because incapable of deduction, 
would be to cast away the first principles of' all reasoning. 
It would banish the authority of intuition, and so reduce all 
philosophy and knowledge to a state of universal scepticism 
— for what is the first departure of every argument but an 
intuition, and what but a series of intuitions are its successive 
stepping-stones ? "We should soon involve ourselves in 
helpless perplexity and darkness, did we insist on every thing 
being proved and on nothing being assumed — for valid 
assumptions are the materials of truth, and the only office of 
argument is to weave them together into so many pieces of 
instruction for the bettering or enlightening of the species. 

22. That blind and unconscious matter cannot, by any of 
her combinations, evolve the phenomena of mind, is a propo- 
sition seen in its own immediate light, and felt to be true 
with all the speed and certainty of an axiom. It is to such 
truth, as being of instant and almost universal consent, that, 
more than to any other, we owe the existence of a natural 
theology among men : yet, because of the occult mysticism 
wherewith it is charged, it is well that ours is a cause of 
such rich and various argument ; that in her service we can 
build up syllogisms, and expatiate over wide fields of induc- 
tion, and amass stores of evidence, and, on the useful dis- 
positions of matter alone, can ground such large computations 
of probability in favour of an intelligent cause or maker for 
all things, as might silence and satisfy the reasoners. 

23. But we forget that the object of the joint compositions 



24 



INTEODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



which enter into this work, is not properly to demonstrate 
the being but the attributes of God, and more especially 
His power and wisdom and goodness. We start from that 
point at which the intuitions and proofs of the question have 
performed their end of convincing man that God is ; and 
from this point, we set forth on an inquiry into the character 
which belongs to Him. Now this is an inquiry which the 
constitution of the mind, and the adaptation of that constitu- 
tion to the external world, are pre-eminently fitted to 
illustrate. We hold that the material universe affords 
decisive attestation to the natural perfections of the God- 
head, but that it leaves the question of his moral perfections 
involved in profoundest mystery. The machinery of a 
serpent's tooth, for the obvious infliction of pain and death 
upon its victims, may speak as distinctly for the power and 
intelligence of its Maker, as the machinery of those teeth 
which, formed and inserted for simple mastication, subserve 
the purposes of a bland and beneficent economy. An 
apparatus of suffering and torture might furnish as clear an 
indication of design, though a design of cruelty, as does an 
apparatus for the ministration of enjoyment furnish the 
indication also of design, but a design of benevolence. Did 
we confine our study to the material constitution of things, 
we should meet with the enigma of many perplexing and 
contradictory appearances. We hope to make it manifest, 
that in the study of the mental constitution, this enigma is 
greatly alleviated, if not wholly done away; and, at all 
events, that within our peculiar province there lie the most 
full and unambiguous demonstrations, which nature hath 
any where given to us, both of the benevolence and the 
righteousness of God. 

24. If, in some respects, the phenomena of mind tell us 
less decisively than the phenomena of matter, of the existence 



IXTEODrCTOET CHAJPTEE. 



25 



of God, they tell us far more distinctly and decisively of 
His attributes. We have already said, that, from the 
simplicity of the mental system, we met with less there of 
that evidence for design which is founded on combination, 
or on that right adjustment and adaptation of the numerous 
particulars, which enter into a complex assemblage of 
tilings, and which are essential to some desirable fulfilment. 
It is not, therefore, through the medium of this particular 
evidence — the evidence which lies in combination— that the 
phenomena and processes of mind are the best for telling us 
of the Divine existence. But if otherwise, or previously 
told of this, we hold them to be the best throughout all 
nature for telling us of the Divine character. For if once 
convinced, on distinct grounds, that G-od is, it matters not 
how simple the antecedents or the consequents of any parti- 
cular succession may be. It is enough that we know what 
the terms of the succession are, or what the effect is where- 
with God wills any given thing to be followed up. The 
character of the ordination, and so the character of the 
ordainer, depends on the terms of the succession ; and not 
on the nature of that intervention or agency, whether more or 
less complex, by which it is brought about. And should 
either term of the succession, either the antecedent or 
consequent, be some moral feeling, or characteristic of the 
mind, then the inference comes to be a very distinct and 
decisive one. That the sight of distress, for example, should 
be followed up by compassion, is an obvious provision of 
benevolence, and not of cruelty, on the part of Him who 
ordained our mental constitution. Again, that a feeling of 
kindness in the heart should be followed up by a feeling of 
complacency in the heart, that in every virtuous affection of 
the soul there should be so much to gladden and harmonize 
it. that there should always be peace within when there is 



26 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



conscious purity or rectitude within ; and, on the other 
hand, that malignity and licentiousness, and the sense of 
any moral transgression whatever, should always have the 
effect of discomforting, and sometimes even of agonizing the 
spirit of man — that such should be the actual workmanship 
and working of our nature, speaks most distinctly, we 
apprehend, for the general righteousness of Him who con- 
structed its machinery and established it laws. An omni- 
potent patron of vice would have given another make, and a 
moral system with other and opposite tendencies, to the 
creatures whom he had formed. He would have established 
different sequences ; and, instead of that oil of gladness 
which now distils, as if from a secret spring of satisfaction, 
upon the upright — and, instead of that bitterness and 
disquietude which are now the obvious attendants on every 
species of delinquency, — we should have had the reverse 
phenomena of a reversely constituted species, whose minds 
were in their state of wildest disorder, when kindling with 
the resolves of highest excellence ; or were in their best and 
happiest, and most harmonious mood, when brooding over 
the purposes of dishonesty, or frenzied with the passions of 
hatred and revenge. 

25. In this special track of observation, we have at least 
the means or data for constructing a far more satisfactory 
demonstration of the Divine attributes, than can possibly be 
gathered, we think, from the ambiguous phenomena of the 
external world. In other words, it will be found that the 
mental phenomena speak more distinctly and decisively for 
the character of God than do the material phenomena of 
creation. And it should not be forgotten, that whatever 
serves to indicate the character, serves also to confirm the 
existence, of the Divine Being. Tor this character, whose 
signatures are impressed on Nature, is not an abstraction, 



IXTEODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



27 



but must have residence in a concrete and substantive 
Being, who hath communicated a transcript of Himself to 
the workmanship of His own hands. It is thus, that, 
although in our assigned department there is greater poverty 
of evidence for a God, in as far as that evidence is grounded 
on a skilful disposition of parts, — jet, in respect of another 
kind of evidence, there is no such poverty ; 'for, greatly 
more replete as we hold our special department to be with 
the unequivocal tokens of a moral character, we, by that 
simple but strong ligament of proof which connects a 
character with an existence, can, in the study of mind alone, 
find a firm stepping-stone to the existence of a God. Our 
universe is sometimes termed the mirror of Him who made 
it. But the optical reflection, whatever it may be, must be 
held as indicating the reality which gave it birth ; and, 
whether we discern there the expression of a reigning 
benevolence, or a reigning justice, these must not be dealt 
with as the aerial or the fanciful personifications of qualities 
alone, but as the substantial evidences of a just and bene- 
volent, and, withal, a living God. 

2G. But, in the prosecution of our assigned task, we 
shall, after all, meet with much of that evidence, which lies 
in the manifold, and, withal, happy conjunction of many 
individual things, by the meeting together of which, some 
distinctly beneficial end is accomplished, brought about in 
that one way, and in no other. For it ought further to be 
recollected, that, simple as the constitution of the human 
mind is, and proportionally unfruitful, therefore, as it may 
be of that argument for a God, which is founded on the 
right assortment and disposition of many parts, or even of 
many principles — yet, on studying the precise terms of the 
commission which has been put into our hands, it will be 
found that the materials even of this peculiar argument lie 



28 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



abundantly witliin our province. For it is not strictly the 
mental constitution of man which forms the subject of our 
prescribed essay, but the adaptation to that constitution of 
external nature. We have to demonstrate, not so much 
that the mind is rightly constituted in itself, as that the mind 
is rightly placed in a befitting theatre for the exercise of its 
powers. It is to demonstrate that the world and its various 
objects are suited to the various capacities of this inhabitant 
— this moral and intelligent creature, of whom we have to 
prove that the things which are around him bear a fit relation 
to the laws or the properties which are within him. There is 
ample room here for the evidence of collocation. Yet there 
remains this distinction between the mental and the corpo- 
real economy of man, that whereas the evidence is more rich 
and manifold in the bodily structure itself, than even in its 
complex and numerous adaptations to the outer world* — the 
like evidence, in our peculiar department, is meagre, as 
afforded by the subjective mind, when compared with the 
evidence of its various adjustments and fitnesses to the 
objective universe around it, whether of man's moral consti- 
tution to the state of human society, or of his intellectual to 
the various objects of physical investigation. 

27. The great object of philosophy is to ascertain the 
simple or ultimate principles, into which all the phenomena 
of nature may by analysis be resolved. But it often happens 
that in this attempt she stops short at a secondary law, which 
might be demonstrated by further analysis to be itself a 
complex derivative of the primitive or elementary laws. Until 
this work of analysis be completed, we shall often mis bake 
what is compound for what is simple, both in the philosophy 

* Yet Paley has a most interesting- chapter on the adaptations of external 
nature to the human framework, though the main strength and copiousness 
of his argument lie in the anatomy of the framework itself. 



rSTEODTJCTOKY CHAPTEE. 



29 



of mind and the philosophy of matter — being frequently 
exposed to intractable substances or intractable phenomena 
in both, which long withstand every effort that science makes 
for their decomposition. It is thus that the time is not yet 
come, and may never come when we shall fully understand, 
what be all the simple elements or simple laws of matter ; 
and what be all the distinct elementary laws, or, as they 
have sometimes been termed, the ultimate facts - in the con- 
stitution of the human mind. But we do not need to wait 
for this communication, ere we can trace, in either depart- 
ment, the wisdom and beneficence of a Deity — for many are 
both the material and the mental processes which might be 
recognised as pregnant with utility, and so, pregnant with 
evidence for a God, long before the processes themselves are 
analysed. The truth is, that a secondary law, if it do not 
exhibit any additional proof of design, in a distinct useful 
principle, exhibits that proof in a distinct and useful dispo- 
sition of parts — for, generally speaking, a secondary law is 
the result of an operation by some primitive law, in peculiar 
and new circumstances. For example, the law of the tides 
is a secondary law, resolvable into one more general and 
elementary — even the law of gravitation. But we might 
imagine a state of things, in which the discovery of this con- 
nection would have been impossible, — as a sky perpetually 
mantled with a cloudy envelopment, which, while it did not 
intercept the light either of the sun or moon, still hid these 
bodies from our direct observation. In these circumstances, 
the law of the tides and the law of gravitation, though 
identical in themselves, could not have been identified by 
us : and so, we might have ascribed this wholesome agitation 
of the sea and of the atmosphere, to a distinct power or 
principle in nature — affording the distinct indication of both 
a kind and intelligent Creator. Now this inference is not 



30 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



annihilated— it is not even enfeebled by the discovery in 
question ; for although the good arising from tides in the 
ocean and tides in the air, is not referable to a peculiar law 
—it is at least referable to a peculiar collocation. And this 
holds of all the useful secondary laws in the material world. 
If they cannot be alleged in evidence for the number of 
beneficial principles in nature — they can at least be alleged 
in evidence for the number of nature's beneficial arrange- 
ments. If they do not attest the multitude of useful proper- 
ties, they at least attest the multitude of useful parts in 
nature— and the skill, guided by benevolence, which has been 
put forth in the distribution of them. So that long ere the 
philosophy of matter is perfected, or all its phenomena and 
its secondary laws have been resolved into their original and 
constituent principles — may we, in their obvious and imme- 
diate utility alone, detect as many separate evidences in 
nature as there are separate facts in nature, for a wise and 
benevolent Deity. 

28. And the same will be found true of the secondary laws 
in the mental world, which, if not as many distinct beneficial 
principles in the constitution of the mind, are the effect of as 
many distinct and beneficial arrangements in the objects or 
circumstances by which it is surrounded. "We have not to 
wait the completion of its still more subtile and difficult 
analysis, ere we come within sight of those varied indications 
of benevolent design which are so abundantly to be met with, 
both in the constitution of the mind itself, and in the adap- 
tation thereto of external nature. Some there are, for 
example, who contend that the laws of taste are not primitive, 
but secondary ; that our admiration of beauty in material 
objects is resolvable into other and original emotions, and 
more especially, by means of the associating principle, into 
our admiration of moral excellence. Let the justness of this 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



31 



doctrine be admitted ; and its only effect on our peculiar 
argument is, that the benevolence of Grod in thus multiplying 
our enjoyments, instead of being indicated by a distinct law 
for suiting the human mind to the objects which surround 
it, is indicated both by the distribution of these objects and 
by their investment with such qualities as suit them to the 
previous constitution of the mind — that he hath pencilled 
them with the very colours, or moulded them into the very 
shapes, which suggest either the graceful or the noble of 
human character ; that he hath imparted to the violet its hue 
of modesty^ and clothed the lily in its robe of purest in- 
nocence, and given to the trees of the forest their respective 
attitudes of strength or delicacy, and made the whole face of 
nature one bright reflection of those virtues which the mind 
and character of man had originally radiated. If it be not 
by the implantation of a peculiar law in mind, it is at least by a 
peculiar disposition of forms and tints in external nature, that 
he hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama 
of visible things ; and thrown so many walks of enchantment 
around us ; and turned the sights and the sounds of rural 
scenery into the ministers of so much and such exquisite 
enjoyment ; and caused the outer world of matter to image 
forth in such profusion those various qualities, which at first 
had pleased or powerfully affected us in the inner world of 
consciousness and thought. It is by the modifying operation 
of circumstances that a primary is transmuted into a 
secondary law ; and if the blessings which we enjoy under it 
cannot be ascribed to the insertion of a distinct principle in 
the nature of man, they can at least be ascribed to a useful 
disposition of circumstances in the theatre around him. 

29. It is thus that philosophical discovery, which is felt by 
many to enfeeble the argument for a God, when it reduces 
two or more subordinate to simpler and anterior laws, does in 



32 



INTKODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 



fact leave that argument as entire as before — for if, by 
analysis, it diminish the number of beneficial properties in 
matter, it replaces the injury which it may be supposed to 
have done in this way to the cause of theism, by presenting 
us with as great and additional number of beneficial arrange- 
ments in nature. And further, it may not be out of place to 
observe, that there appear to be two distinct ways by which 
an artificer might make manifest the wisdom of his con- 
trivances. He may either be conceived of, as forming a 
substance, and endowing it with the fit properties ; or as 
finding a substance with certain given properties, and 
arranging it into fit dispositions for the accomplishment of 
some desirable end. Both the former and the latter of these 
we ascribe to the divine artificer — of whom we imagine, that 
He is the Creator as well as the Disposer of all things. It 
is only the latter that we can ascribe to the human artificer, 
who creates no substance, and ordains no property ; but finds 
the substance with all its properties ready made and put into 
his hands, as the raw material out of which he fashions his 
implements and rears his structures of various design and 
workmanship. Now it is a commonly received, and has 
indeed been raised into a sort of universal maxim, that the 
highest property of wisdom is to achieve the most desirable 
end, or the greatest amount of good, by the fewest possible 
means, or by the simplest machinery. "When this test is 
applied to the laws of nature — then we esteem it as enhancing 
the manifestation of intelligence, that one single law, as 
gravitation, should, as from a central and commanding 
eminence, subordinate to itself a whole host of most 
important phenomena ; or that from one great and parent 
property, so vast a family of beneficial consequences should 
spring. And when the same test is applied to the disposi- 
tions, whether of nature or art — then it enhances the 



IXTKODUCTOBY CHAPXEB. 33 

manifestation of wisdom, when some great end is brought 
about with a less complex or cumbersome instrumentality, 
as often takes place in the simplification of machines, when 
by the device of some ingenious ligament or wheel, the 
apparatus is made equally, perhaps more effective, whilst less 
unwieldy or less intricate than before. Yet there is one way 
in which, along with an exceeding complication in the 
mechanism, there might be given the impression, of the very 
highest skill and capacity having been put forth on the con- 
trivance of it. It is when, by means of a very operose and 
complex instrumentality, the triumph of art has been made 
all the more conspicuous, by a very marvellous result having 
been obtained out of very unpromising materials. It is true, 
that, in this case too, a still higher impression of skill would 
be given, if the same, or a more striking result were arrived 
at, even after the intricacy of the machine had beenreduced, by 
some happy device, in virtue of which, certain of its parts or 
circumvolutions had been superseded; and thus, without in- 
jury to the final effect, so much of the complication had been 
dispensed with. Still, however, the substance, whether of the 
machine or the manufacture, may be conceived so very in- 
tractable as to put an absolute limit on any further simpli- 
fication, or as to create an absolute necessity for all the 
manifold contrivance which had been expended on it. When 
this idea predominates in the mind — then all the complexity 
which we may behold does not reduce our admiration of the 
artist, but rather deepens the sense that we have, both of the 
reconditeness of his wisdom, and of the wondrous vastness 
and variety of his resources. It is the extreme wideness of 
the contrast, between the sluggishness of matter and the 
fineness of the results in physiology, which so enhances our 
veneration for the great Architect of Nature, when wo 
behold the exquisite organizations of the animal and vegetable 

n 



34 



IKTEODTJCTOEY CHAPTEK. 



kingdoms.* The two exhibitions are wholly distinct from 
each other — yet each of them maybe perfect in its own way. 
The first is held forth to us, when one law of pervading 
generality is found to scatter a myriad of beneficent conse- 
quences in its train. The second is held forth, when, by an 
infinite complexity of means, a countless variety of expedients, 
with their multiform combinations, some one design, such as 
the upholding of life in plants or animals, is accomplished. 
Creation presents us in marvellous profusion with specimens 
of both these — at once confirming the doctrine, and illus- 
trating the significancy of the expression in which Scripture 
hath conveyed it to us, when it tells of the manifold wisdom 
of God. 

30. But while, on a principle already often recognised, 
this multitude of necessary conditions to the accomplishment 
of a given end, enhances the argument for a God, because 
each separate condition reduces the hypothesis of chance 
to a more violent improbability than before ; yet it must 
not be disguised that there is a certain transcendental 
mystery wmich it has the effect of aggravating, and which it 
leaves unresolved. We can understand the complex ma- 
chinery and the circuitous processes to which a human artist 
must resort, that he might overcome the else uncomplying 
obstinacy of inert manner, and bend it in subserviency to 
his special designs. But that the Divine Artist who first 
created the matter and ordained its laws, should find the 
same complication necessary for the accomplishment of his 
purposes — that such an elaborate workmanship, for example, 
should be required to establish the functions of sight and 
hearing in the animal economy — is very like the lavish or 

* Dr. Paley would state the problem thus : The laws of matter being* 
given, so to organize it, as that it shall produce or sustain the phenomena 
whether of vegetation or of life. 



I^TEODXJCTOET CHAPTER. 



35 



ostensible ingenuity of a Being employed in conquering the 
difficulty which himself had raised. It is true the one 
immediate purpose is served by it which we have just noticed, 
that of presenting, as it were, to the eye of inquirers a more 
manifold inscription of the Divinity. But if, instead of 
being the object of inference, it had pleased God to make 
himself the object of a direct manifestation, then, for the 
mere purpose of becoming known to his creatures, this reflex 
or circuitous method of revelation would have been altogether 
uncalled for. That under the actual system of creation, and 
with its actual proofs, he has made his existence most deci- 
sively known to us, we most thankfully admit. But when 
question is made between the actual and the conceivable sys- 
tems of creation which God might haveemanated, we are forced 
to confess, that the very circumstances which, in the existing 
order of things, have brightened and enhanced the evidence 
of His being, have also cast a deeper secrecy over what may 
be termed the general policy of His government and ways. 
And this is but one of the many difficulties, which men of 
unbridled speculation, and unobservant of that sound philoso- 
phy that keeps within the limits of human observation, will 
find it abundantly possible to conjure up on the field of 
natural theism. It does look an impracticable enigma, 
that the Omnipotent God, who could have grafted all the 
capacities of thought and feeling on an elementary atom, 
should have deemed fit to corporate the human soul in the 
midst of so curious and complicated a framework. For what 
a variegated structure is man's animal economy. What an 
apparatus of vessels and bones and ligaments. /What a 
complex mechanism. What an elaborate chemistry. What 
a multitude of parts in the anatomy, and of processes in the 
physiology of this marvellous system. What a medley, we 
had almost said, what a package of contents. What an 



36 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



unwearied play of secretions, and circulations, and other 
changes incessant and innumerable. In short, what a la- 
borious complication ; and all to uphold a living principle, 
which, one might think, could by a simple fiat of omnipotence 
have sprung forth at once from the great source and centre 
of the spiritual system, and mingled with the world of spirits 
— just as each new particle of light is sent forth by the 
emanation of a sunbeam, to play and glisten among fields of 
radiance. 

31. But to recall ourselves from this digression among the 
possibilities of what might have been, to the realities of the 
mental system, such as it actually is. Ere we bring the very 
general observations of this chapter to a close, we would 
briefly notice an analogy between the realities of the mental 
and those of the corporeal system. The inquirers into the 
latter have found it of substantial benefit to their science, to 
have mixed up with the prosecution of it a reference to 
final causes. Their reasoning on the likely uses of a part in 
anatomy, has, in some instances, suggested or served as 
guide to speculations, which have been at length verified by 
a discovery. "We believe, in like manner, that reasoning on 
the likely or obvious uses of a principle in the constitution 
of the human mind, might lead, if not to the discovery, at 
least to the confirmation of important truth — not perhaps in 
the science itself, but in certain of the cognate sciences which 
stand in no very distant relation to it. For example, we 
think it should rectify certain errors which have been com- 
mitted both in jurisprudence and political economy, if it can 
be demonstrated that some of the undoubted laws of human 
nature are traversed by them ; and so, that violence is thereby 
done to the obvious designs of the Author of Nature. "We 
shall not hold it out of place, though we notice one or two of 
hese instances, by which it might be seen that the mental 



iyTEODUCTOBY CHAPTEE. 



37 



philosophy, when studied in connection with the palpable 
views of Him by whom all its principles and processes were 
ordained, is fitted to enlighten the practice of legislation, and 
more especially to determine the wisdom of certain arrange- 
ments which have for their object the economic wellbeing of 
society. 

32. We feel the arduousness of our peculiar' task, and the 
feeling is not at all alleviated by our sense of its surpassing 
dignity. The superiority of mind to matter has often been 
the theme of eloquence to moralists. For what were all the 
wonders of the latter and all its glories, without a spectator 
mind that could intelligently view and that could tastefully 
admire them ? Let every eye be irrevocably closed, and this 
were equivalent to the entire annihilation in nature of the 
element of light : and in like manner, if the light of all con- 
sciousness were put out in the world of mind, the world of 
matter, though as rich in beauty and in the means of benevo- 
lence as before, were thereby reduced to a virtual nonentity. 
In these circumstances, the lighting up again of even but one 
mind would restore its being, or at least its significancy, 
to that system of materialism, which, untouched itself, had 
just been desolated of all those beings in whom it could 
kindle reflection, or to whom it could minister the sense 
of enjoyment. It were tantamount to the second creation 
of it — or, in other words, one living intelligent spirit is of 
higher reckoning and mightier import than a dead universe. 



PAET L 



OK THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE 
MORAL CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 

CHAPTEE I. 

EIRST GENERAL ARGUMENT. 

On the Supremacy of Conscience. 

1. An abstract question in morals is distinct from a question 
respecting the constitution of man's moral nature ; and the 
former ought no more to be confounded with the latter, than 
the truths of geometry with the faculties of the reasoning 
mind which comprehends them. The virtuousness of justice 
was a stable doctrine in ethical science, anterior to the ex- 
istence of the species ; and would remain so, though the 
species were destroyed — just as much as the properties of a 
triangle are the enduring stabilities of mathematical science ; 
and that, though no matter had been created to exemplify 
the positions or the figures of geometry. The objective 
nature of virtue is one thing. The subjective nature of the 
human mind, by which virtue is felt and recognised, is 
another. It is not from the former, any more than from the 
eternal truths of geometry, that we can demonstrate the 
existence or attributes of Grod — but from the latter, as 
belonging to the facts of a creation emanating from His 
will, and therefore bearing upon it the stamp of His character. 
The nature and constitution of virtue form a distinct subject 



THE SUPREMACY OP COffSCIElSrCE. 



39 



of inquiry from tlie nature and constitution of the human 
mind. Virtue is not a creation of the Divine will, but has 
had everlasting residence in the nature of the Godhead. 
The mind of man is a creation ; and therefore indicates, by 
its characteristics, the character of Him, to the fiat and 
the forthgoing of whose will it owes its existence. We 
must frequently, in the course of this discussion, advert to 
the principles of ethics ; but it is not on the system of 
ethical doctrine that our argument is properly founded. It 
is on the phenomena and the laws of actual human nature 
which itself, one of the great facts of creation, may be re- 
garded like all its facts, as bearing on it the impress of that 
Mind which gave birtb to creation. 

2. But further. It is not only not with the system of 
ethical doctrine — it is not even with the full system of the 
philosophy of our nature, that we have properly to do. On 
this last there is still a number of unsettled questions ; but 
our peculiar argument does not need to wait for the conclu- 
sive determination of them. For example, there is many a 
controversy among philosophers respecting the primary and 
secondary laws of the human constitution. iSovr, if it be an 
obviously beneficial law, it carries evidence for a God, in the 
mere existence and operation of it, independently of the 
rank which it holds, or of the relation in which it stands to 
the other principles of our internal mechanism. It is thus 
that there may, at one and the same time, be grounded 
on the law in question a clear theological inference ; and yet 
there may be associated witli it an obscure philosophical 
speculation. It is well that we separate these two ; and, 
more especially, that the decisive attestation given by any 
part or phenomenon of our nature to the Divine goodness, 
shall not be involved in the mist and metaphysical perplexity 
of other reasonings, the object of which is altogether dis- 



40 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE 



tinct and separate from our own. The facts of the human 
constitution, apart altogether from the philosophy of their 
causation, demonstrate the wisdom and benevolence of Him 
who framed it : and while it is our part to follow the light 
of this philosophy, as far as the light and the guidance of it 
are sure, we are not, in those cases, when the final cause is 
obvious as day, though the proximate efficient cause should 
be hidden in deepest mystery — we are not, on this account, 
to confound darkness with light, or light with darkness. 

3. By attending throughout to this observation, we shall 
be saved from a thousand irrelevancies as well as obscurities 
of argument ; and it is an observation peculiarly applicable, 
in announcing that great fact or phenomenon of mind, which, 
for many reasons, should hold a foremost place in our demon- 
stration — we mean the felt supremacy of conscience — [a 
phenomenon of much greater weight and prominency than 
are commonly assigned to it in the demonstrations of 
Natural Theism — a phenomenon without which we should, 
in the multitude of processes around us, with the infinite 
diversity of their effects, feel ourselves but as in a world of 
enigmas ; but which singly and of itself, serves the office of 
a great light to overrule the cross or contradictory inti- 
mations that are given by the lesser ones.] Philosophers 
there are, who have attempted to resolve this fact into 
ulterior or ultimate ones in the mental constitution ; and 
who have denied to the faculty a place among its original 
and uncompounded principles. Sir James Macintosh tells 
us of the generation of human conscience ; and, not merely 
states, but endeavours to explain the phenomenon of its felt 
supremacy within us. Dr. Adam Smith also assigns a pedi- 
gree to our moral judgments ; but, with all his peculiar 
notions respecting the origin of the awards of conscience, 
he never once disputes their authority; or that, by the 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



41 



general consent of mankind, this authority is, in sentiment 
and opinion at least, conceded to there.* It is somewhat 
like an antiquarian controversy respecting the first formation 
and subsequent historical changes of some certain court of 
government, the rightful authority of whose decisions and 
acts, is at the same time, fully recognised. And so, philoso- 
phers have disputed regarding the court of .conscience — 
of what materials it is constructed, and by what line of 
genealogy from the anterior principles of our nature it 
has sprung. Yet most of these have admitted the proper 
right of sovereimtv which belongs to it : its legitimate 
place as the master and the arbiter over all the appetites, 
and desires, and practical forces of human nature.. Or, if 
any have dared the singularity of denying this, they do so in 
opposition to the general sense and general language of man- 
kind, whose very modes of speech compel them to affirm 
that the biddings of conscience are of paramount authoritv — 
its peculiar office being to tell what all men should, or all 
men ought to do. 

4. The proposition, however, which we are now urging, is 
not that the obligations of virtue are binding, but that man 
has a conscience which tells him that they are so — not that 
justice and truth and humanity are the dogmata of the abstract 

* " Upon whatever/ 1 observes Dr. Adam Smith, " we suppose our moral 
faculties to be founded, whether upon a certain modification of reason, 
upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other principle 
of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they were g-iven us for the direc- 
tion of our conduct in this life. They cany along- with them the most evi- 
dent badg-es of this authority, which denote that they were set up within 
us to be the supreme arbiters all of our actions, to superintend all our sense>, 
passions, and appetites, and to judg-e how far each of them was either to be 
indulged or restrained. It is the peculiar office of these faculties to judge, 
to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principles of our nature.'" 
— Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part iii. chap. v. 



42 



THE STTPEEMACT OE CONSCIENCE. 



moral system, but that they are the dictates of man's moral 
nature — not that in themselves they are the constituent parts 
of moral rectitude, but that there is a voice within every 
heart which thus pronounces on them. It is not with the 
constitution of morality, viewed objectively, as a system or 
theory of doctrine, that we have properly to do ; but with the 
constitution of man's spirit, viewed as the subject of certain 
phenomena and laws — and, more particularly, with a great 
psychological fact in human nature ; namely, the homage 
rendered by it to the supremacy of conscience. In a word ? 
it is not of a category, but of a creation that we are speaking. 
The one can tell us nothing of the Divine character, while 
the other might afford most distinct and decisive indications 
of it. We could found no demonstration whatever of the 
Divine purposes, on a mere ethical, any more than we could, 
on a logical or mathematical category. But it is very diffe- 
rent with an actual creation, whether in mind or in matter — 
a mechanism of obvious contrivance, and whose workings and 
tendencies, therefore, must be referred to the design, and so 
to the disposition or character of that Being, whose Spirit 
hath devised, and whose fingers have framed it. 

[5. For it is not an abstract question in Moral Science that 
we are now discussing. It is a question of Fact, respecting 
man's moral nature — and as much to be decided by observa- 
tion as the nature or properties of any substantive being. 
It is a Pact which we learn or become acquainted with, just 
as we become acquainted with the constitution of a watch 
by the inspection of its mechanism. Conscience in Man is 
as much a thing of observation — as the regulator in a watch 
is a thing of observation. It depends for its truth, there- 
fore, on an independent and abiding evidence of its own, 
under all the diversities of speculation on the nature of 
Virtue. By the supremacy of Conscience we affirm a truth 



THE SUPEEMACY OE COKSCIEITCB: 



43 



which respects not the nature of Virtue but the nature of 
Man. It is, that in every human heart, there is a faculty — 
not, it may be, having the actual power, but having the just 
and rightful pretension to sit as judge and master over the 
whole of human conduct. Other propensities may have too 
much sway — but the moral propensity, if I may so term it, 
never can— for to have the presiding sway in all our con- 
cerns, is just that which properly and legitimately belongs 
to it. A man under anger may be too strongly prompted to 
deeds of retaliation— or under sensuality be too strongly 
prompted to indulgence — or under avarice be too closely 
addicted to the pursuit of wealth — or even under friendship 
be too strongly inclined to partiality — but he never can 
under conscience be too strongly inclined to be as he ought 
and to do as he ought. We may say of a watch that its 
main-spring is too powerful : but we would never say that a 
Regulator is too powerful. We may complain of each of its 
other parts that it has too much influence over the rest — 
but not that the part whose office is to regulate and fix the 
rate of going has too much influence. And just as a watch 
cannot move too regularly, man cannot walk too conscien- 
tiously. The one cannot too much obey its regulator— the 
other cannot too much obey his conscience. In other words, 
Conscience is the rightful Sovereign in man — and if any 
other, in the character of a ruling passion, be the actual 
Sovereign — it is an usurper. In the former case, the mind 
is felt to be in its proper and well-conditioned state ; in the 
latter case, it is felt to be in a state of anarchy. Yet even 
in that anarchy, Conscience though despoiled of its autho- 
rity, still lifts its remonstrating claims. Though deprived of 
its rights, it continues to assert them. Long after being 
stripped of its dominion over man, it still has its dwelling- 



44 THE SUPREMACY OP C02T&CIEKCE. 

p 7 ace in liis bosom ; and even when most in practice disre- 
garded, then it makes itself to be felt and heard. 

6. The supremacy of Conscience does not seem to have 
been sufficiently adverted to by Dr. Thomas Brown. He 
treats the moral feeling rather as an individual emotion which 
takes its part in the enumeration along with others in his 
list, than as the great master-emotion that is not appeased 
but by its ascendancy over them all. JSTow, instead of a single 
combatant in the play of many others, and which will only 
obtain the victory, if physically of greater power and force ; 
it should be viewed as separate and signalized from the rest 
by its own felt and inherent claim of superiority over them, 
Each emotion hath its own characteristic object wherewith 
it is satisfied. But the specific object of this emotion is tbe 
regulation of all the active powers of the soul — and without 
this, it is not satisfied. The distinction made by the sagacious 
Butler between the power of a principle and its authority, 
enables us in the midst of all the actual anomalies and dis- 
orders of our state, to form a precise estimate of the place 
which Conscience naturally and rightfully holds in man's con- 
stitution. The desire of acting virtuously, which is a desire 
consequent on our sense of right and wrong, may not be of 
equal strength with the desire of some criminal indulgence 
— and so, practically, the evil may preponderate over the 
good. And thus it is that the system of the inner man, from 
the weakness of that which claims to be the ascendant prin- 
ciple of our nature may be thrown into a state of turbulence 
and disorder. So it may happen of a system of Civil Govern- 
ment — and just, from the real power and the rightful autho- 
rity being dissevered the one from the other. But still this 
does not hinder there being a rightful authority somewhere 
— and that it may have existence, although it may not have 



THE SUPREMACY OF CO^'SCIE^CE. 



45 



force to carry the execution of its dictates. It is the very 
same of the Government within. There might be pride and 
passion and sensuality and the love of ease, and a thousand 
more affections, each having their own object and their own 
decree of strength — and withal a Conscience that claims the 
supremacy over all these ; but which often of inferior strength 
to them all may suffer them to lord it over that domain of 
which it rightfully is the master and proprietor. To it 
belongs the mastery — although the mastery is often wrong- 
fully taken away from it. But still our urgent and unescape- 
able sense of the wrong ; our remorse and self-dissatisfaction 
when Conscience is disobeyed ; the happiness and harmony 
which are felt within, when the voice of authority which it 
emits is also a voice of power ; the well- conditioned state of 
the soul, when the moral faculty overrules all, and subordi- 
nates all — these are so many badges of the proper and native 
supremacy of Conscience ; and they evince that its part and 
office in the mechanism of our moral system is to act as 
regulator of the whole.] 

7. And neither do we urge the proposition that conscience 
has, in every instance, the actual direction of human affairs, 
for this were in the face of all experience. It is not that 
every man obeys her dictates, but that every man feels he 
ought to obey them. These dictates are often in life and 
practice disregarded : so that conscience is not the sovereign 
de facto. Still there is a voice within the hearts of all which 
asserts that conscience is the sovereign de jure ; that to her 
belongs the command rightfully, even though she do not pos- 
sess it actually. In a season of national anarchy, the actual 
power and the legitimate authority are often disjoined from 
each other. The lawful monarch may be dethroned, and so 
lose the might ; while he continues to possess — nay, while he 
maybe acknowledged throughout his kingdom to possess, the 



46 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



right of sovereignty. The distinction still is made, even 
tinder this reign of violence, between the usurper and the 
lawful sovereign ; and there is a similar distinction among the 
powers and principles of the human constitution, when an 
insurrection takes place of the inferior against the superior ; 
and conscience, after being dethroned from her place of 
mastery and control, is still felt to be the superior, or rather 
supreme faculty of our nature notwithstanding. She may 
have fallen from her dominion, yet still wear the badges of 
a fallen sovereign, having the acknowledged right of autho- 
rity, though the power of enforcement has been wrested 
away from her. She may be outraged in all her prerogatives 
by the lawless appetites of our nature, — but not without the 
accompanying sense within of an outrage and a wrong having 
been inflicted, and a reclaiming voice from thence which 
causes itself to be heard and which remonstrates against it. 
The insurgent and inferior principles of our constitution may, 
in the uproar of their wild mutiny, lift a louder and more 
effective voice than the small still voice of conscience. They 
have the might, but not the right. Conscience, on the other 
hand, is felt to have the right, though not the might, — the 
legislative office being that which properly belongs to her ; 
though the executive power should be wanting to enforce her 
enactments. It is not the reigning but the rightful authority 
of conscience that we, under the name of her supremacy, 
contend for ; or, rather the fact that, by the consent of all our 
higher principles and feelings, this rightful authority is 
reputed to be hers ; and, by the general concurrence of man- 
kind awarded to her. 

8. And here it is of capital importance to distinguish 
between an original and proper tendency, and a subsequent 
aberration. This has been well illustrated by the regulator of 
a watch, whose office and primary design, and that obviously 



TILE SUPEEATACT OE CONSCIENCE. 



47 



announced by the relation in which it stands to the other 
parts of the machinery, is to control the velocity of its move- 
ments. And we should still perceive this to have been its 
destination even though, by accident or decay, it had lost 
the power of command which at the first belonged to it. "We 
should not misunderstand the purpose of its maker, although, 
in virtue of some deterioration or derangement which the 
machinery had undergone, that purpose were how frustrated. 
And we could discern the purpose in tbe very make and con- 
stitution of the mechanism. "VTe might even see it to be an 
irregular watch ; and yet this needs not prevent us from 
seeing, that, at its original fabrication, it was made for the 
purpose of moving regularly. The mere existence and posi- 
tion of the regulator might suffice to indicate this, — although 
it had become powerless, either from the wearing of the 
parts, or from some extrinsic disturbance to which the 
instrument had been exposed. The regulator in this instance, 
may be said to have the right, though not the power of com- 
mand, over the movements of the timepiece ; yet the loss of the 
power has not obliterated the vestiges of the right ; so that, 
by the inspection of the machinery alone, we both learn the 
injury which lias been done to it, and the condition in which 
it originally came from the hand of its maker — a condition of 
actual as well as rightful supremacy, on the part of the regu- 
lator, over all its movements. And a similar discovery may 
be made, by examination of the various parts and principles 
which make up the moral system of man : for we see various 
parts and principles there. We see Ambition, having power 
for its object, and without the attainment of which it is not 
satisfied ; and Avarice having wealth for its object, without 
the attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and Benevolence 
having for its object the good of others, without the attain- 
ment of which it is not satisfied; and the love of Eeputation, 



48 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



having for its object their applause, without which it is not 
satisfied ; and lastly, to proceed no further in the enumera- 
tion, Conscience, which surveys and superintends the whole 
man, whose distinct and appropriate object it is to have the 
entire control both of his inward desires and outward doings, 
and without the attainment of this it is thwarted from its 
proper aim, and remains unsatisfied. Each appetite, or affec- 
tion of our nature, has its own distinct object ; but this last 
is the object of Conscience, which may be termed the 
moral affection. The place which it occupies, or rather 
which it is felt that it should occupy, and which naturally 
belongs to it, is that of a governor, claiming the superiority, 
and taking to itself the direction, over all the other powers 
and passions of humanity. If this superiority be denied to 
it, there is a felt violence done to the whole economy of man. 
The sentiment is, that the thing is not as it should be : and 
even after conscience is forced, in virtue of some subsequent 
derangement, from this station of rightful ascendency, we 
can still distinguish between what is the primitive design or 
tendency, and what is the posterior aberration. "We can 
perceive, in the case of a deranged and distempered watch, 
that the mechanism is out of order ; but even then, on the 
bare examination of its workmanship, and more especiallv 
from the place and bearing of its regulator, can we pro- 
nounce that it was made for moving regularly. And in like 
manner, on the bare inspection of our mental economy alone, 
and more particularly from the place which conscience has 
there, can we, in the case of the man who refuses to obey its 
dictates, affirm that he was made for walking conscientiously. 

9. The distinction which we now labour to establish 
between conscience and the other principles of our nature, 
does not respect the actual force or prevalence which may, 
or may not, severally belong to them. It respects the 



THE STJPEEMACY OF COKSCIESTCE. 



49 



universal judgment which, by the very constitution of our 
nature, is passed on the question, which of all these should 
have the prevalence, whenever there happens to be a contest 
between them. All which we afhrm is, that if conscience 
prevail over the other principles, then every man is led, by the 
verv make and mechanism of his internal economy, to feel 
that this is as it ought to be ; or, if these others prevail over 
conscience, that this is not as it ought to be. One, it is gene- 
rally felt, may be too ambiguous, or too much set on wealth 
and fame, or too resentful of injury, or even too facile in his 
benevolence, when carried to the length of being injudicious 
and hurtful ; but no one is ever felt, if he have sound and 
enlightened views of morality, to be too conscientious. 
When we affirm this of conscience, we but concur in the 
homage rendered to it by all men, as being the rightful, if 
not the actual superior, among all the feelings and faculties 
of our nature. It is a truth, perhaps, too simple for being- 
reasoned ; but this is because, like many of the most im- 
portant and undoubted certainties of human belief, it is a 
truth of instant recognition. When stating the supremacy 
of conscience, in the sense that we have explained it, we 
but state what all men feel; and our only argument, in 
proof of the assertion, is — our only argument can be, an 
appeal to the experience of all men. 

10. Bishop Butler has often been spoken of as the first 
discoverer of this great principle in our nature ; though 
perhaps, no man can properly be said to discover what all 
men are conscious of. But certain it is, that he is the first 
who hath made [the natural supremacy of conscience] the 
subject of a full and reflex cognizance [ — and by this achieve- 
ment alone hath become the author of one of the most 
important contributions ever made to moral science.] It 
forms the argument of his three first sermons, in a volume 

E 



50 



THE SUPItEI'IACY QE CO^SCIEKCE. 



which may safely be pronounced, the most precious re- 
pository of sound ethical principles extant in any language. 
" The authority of conscience," says Dugald Stewart, 
" although beautifully described by many of the ancient 
moralists, was not sufficiently attended to by modern writers, 
as a fundamental principle in the science of ethics till the 
time of Dr. Butler." It belongs to the very essence of the 
principle, that we clearly distinguish, between what we find 
to be the actual force of conscience, and what we feel to be 
its rightful authority. These two may exist in a state of 
separation from each other, just as in a Civil Government 
the reigning power may, in seasons of anarchy, be dissevered 
from that supreme court or magistrate to whom it right- 
fully belongs. The mechanism of a political fabric is not 
adequately or fully described by the mere enumeration of 
its parts. There must also enter into the description, the 
relation which the parts bear to each other ; and more 
especially, the paramount relation of rightful ascendency 
and direction, which that part, in which the functions of 
Government are vested, bears to the whole. Neither is 
the mechanism of man's personal constitution fully or 
adequately described, by merely telling us in succession the 
several parts of which it is composed — as the passions, and 
the appetites, and the affections, and the moral sense, and 
the intellectual capacities, which make up this complex and 
variously gifted creature. The particulars of his mental 
system must not only be stated, each in their individuality ; 
but the bearing or connection which each has with the rest 
— else it is not described as a system at all. In making out 
this description, we should not only not overlook the indi- 
vidual faculty of conscience, but we must not . overlook its 
relative place among the other feelings and faculties of our 
nature. That place is the place of command, "What con- 



THE SUPREMACY OP COXSCIEXCE. 



51 



science lays claim to is the mastery or regulation over the 
whole man. Each desire of onr nature rests or terminates in 
its own appropriate object, as the love of fame in applause, or 
hunger in food, or revenge in the infliction of pain upon its 
object, or affection for another in the happiness and company 
of the beloved individual. But the object of the moral 
sense is to arbitrate and direct among all these- propensities. 
It claims the station and the prerogative of a mistress over 
them. Its peculiar office is that of [superintendence, and 
there is a certain feeling of violence or disorder, when the 
mandates which it issues in this capacity are not carried 
into effect. Every affection in our nature is appeased by 
the object that is suited to it. The object of conscience is 
the subordination of the whole to its dictates. "Without 
this it remains unappeased, and as if bereft of its rights. 
It is not a single faculty, taking its own separate and 
unconnected place among the other feelings and faculties 
which beloug to us. Its proper place is that of a guide or a 
governor. It is the ruling power in our nature ; and its 
proper, its legitimate business, is to prescribe that man 
shall be as he ought, and do as he ought. But instead 
of expatiating any further at present in language of our 
own, let us here admit a few brief sentences from Butler 
himself, that great and invaluable expounder both of the 
human constitution, and of moral science. " That principle 
by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our 
own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered 
as what in its turn is to have some influence, which may be 
said of every passion, of the basest appetites : but likewise 
as being superior ; as from its very nature manifestly 
claiming superiority over all others : insomuch that you 
cannot form a notion of this faculty conscience, withou 
taking in judgment, direction, and superintendency. This 



52 



THE SUPREMACY OE CO>* SCIENCE. 



is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty 
itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy 
and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as 
it has right ; had it power, as it has manifest authority ; it 
would absolutely govern the world." " This faculty was 
placed within us to be our proper governor ; to direct and 
regulate all under principles, passions, and motives of action. 
This is its right and office. Thus sacred is its authority. 
And how often soever men violate and rebelliously refuse 
to submit to it, for supposed interest which they cannot 
otherwise obtain, or for the sake of passion which they 
cannot otherwise gratify ; this makes no alteration as to the 
natural right and office of conscience." ["As the idea of a civil 
constitution implies in it united strength, various subordina- 
tions under one direction that of the supreme authority, the 
different strength of each particular member of the society 
not coming into the idea ; whereas if you leave out the sub- 
ordination, the union, and the one direction, you lose it; so 
reason, several appetites, passions and affections, prevailing 
in different degrees of strength, is not that idea or notion of 
human nature, which is meant when virtue is said to consist 
in following it, and vice in deviating from it; but that nature 
consists in these several principles considered as having a 
natural respect to each other, in the several passions being 
naturally subordinate to the one superior principle of reflec- 
tion or conscience. Every bias, instinct, propension within , 
is a real part of our nature, but not the whole : Add to these 
the superior faculty, whose office it is to adjust, manage and 
preside over them, and take in this its natural superiority, 
and you complete the idea of human nature. And as in civil 
government the constitution is broken in upon, and violated 
by power and strength prevailing over authority ; so the 
constitution of man is broken in upon and violated by the 



THE SUPREMACY OF COXSCIEZSXT. 



53 



lower faculties or principles within prevailing over that, 
which is in its nature supreme over them all. Thus when it 
is said by ancient writers, that tortures and death are not so 
contrary to human nature as injustice ; by this, to be sure, 
is not meant, that the aversion to the former in mankind is 
less strong and prevalent than their aversion to the latter : 
But that the former is only contrary to our nature considered 
in a partial view, and which takes in only the lowest part of 
it, that which we have in common with the brutes ; whereas 
the latter is contrary to our nature, considered in a higher 
sense, as a system and constitution, contrary to the whole 
economy of man." The conclusion on the whole is — that 
£: man cannot be considered as a creature left by his Maker 
to act at random, and live at large up to the extent of his 
natural power, as passion, human wilfulness, happen to carry 
him ; which is the condition brute creatures are in : But 
that from his make, constitution, or nature, he is, in the 
strictest and most proper sense, a law to himself. He hath 
the ride of right within : What is wanting is only that he 
honestly attend to it."] 

11. Xow it is in these phenomena of conscience that Xature 
oilers to us, far her strongest argument, for the moral 
character of God. Had He been an unrighteous Being 
himself, would He have given to this the obviously superior 
faculty in man, so distinct and authoritative a voice on the 
side of righteousness ? Would He have so constructed the 
creatures of our species, as to have planted in every breast a 
reclaiming witness against Himself? Would He have thus 
inscribed on the tablet of every heart the sentence of His 
own condemnation ; and is not this just as unlikely, as that He 
should have inscribed it in written characters on the forehead 
of each individual ? Would he have so fashioned the work- 
manship of His own hands ; or, if a God of cruelty, injustice, 



54 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



and falsehood, would He have placed in the station of master 
and judge that faculty which, felt to be the highest in our 
nature, would prompt a generous and high-minded revolt of 
all our sentiments against the being who formed us ? Prom 
a God possessed of such characteristics, we should surely 
have expected a differently-moulded humanity ; or, in other 
words, from the actual constitution of man, from the 
testimonies on the side of all righteousness, given by the 
vicegerent within the heart, do we infer the righteousness of 
the Sovereign who placed it there. He would never have 
established a conscience in man, and invested it with the 
authority of a monitor, and given to it those legislative and 
judicial functions it obviously possesses ; and then so framed 
it, that all its decisions should be on the side of that virtue 
which He Himself disowned, and condemnatory of that vice 
which He Himself exemplified. This is an evidence for the 
righteousness of God, which keeps its ground, amid all the 
disorders and aberrations to which humanity is liable ; and, 
can no more, indeed, be deafened or overborne by these, than 
is the rightful authority of public opinion, by the occasional 
outbreakings of iniquity and violence which take place in 
society. This public opinion may, in those seasons of mis- 
rule when might prevails over right, be deforced from the 
practical ascendancy which it ought to have ; but the very 
sentiment that it so ought, is our reason for believing the 
world to have been originally formed, in order that virtue 
might have the rule over it. In like manner, when, in the 
bosom of every individual man, we can discern a conscience^ 
placed there with the obvious design of being a guide and a 
commander, it were difficult not to believe, that, whatever 
the partial outrages may be which the cause of virtue has to 
sustain, it has the public mind of the universe in its favour ; 
and that therefore He ? who is the Maker and the Euler of 



THE SUPREMACY OP CONSCIENCE. 



00 



sucli a universe, is a God of righteousness. Amid all the 
subsequent deteriorations and errors, the original design, both 
of a deranged watch and of a deranged human nature, is alike 
manifest; first, of the maker of the watch, that its motions 
should harmonize with time, second, of the maker of man, that 
his movements should harmonize with truth andrighteousness. 
We can in most cases, discern between an aberration and an 
original law; between a direct or primitive tendency and the 
effect of a disturbing force, by which that tendency is thwarted 
and overborne. And so of the constitution of man. It may be 
now a loosened and disproportioned thing, yet we can trace 
the original structure — even as from the fragments of a ruin, 
we can obtain the perfect model of a building from its capital 
to its base. It is thus that, however prostrate conscience 
may have fallen, we can still discern its place of native and 
original pre-eminence, as being at once the legislator and the 
judge in the moral system, though the executive forces of the 
system have made insurrection against it, and thrown the 
whole into anarchy. [By studying the constitution, or what 
Butler calls the make of any thing, we may divine the pur- 
pose of the Maker. No one can mistake the design of the 
artificer in putting a regulator into a watch. It was to make 
it move regularly. And as little should we mistake the design 
of the Creator in putting a Conscience into man's bosom. 
It was to make him walk conscientiously. Even although 
from some derangement in the machinery, the regulator had 
lost its power of control— yet from its plan of control the 
original purpose of it may still be abundantly manifest. And 
in like manner, though from the unhingement of man's 
moral economy, Conscience may have fallen from the actual 
sway, it still bespeaks itself to be a fallen sovereign, and 
that the place of sovereignty is that which natively and 
rightfully belongs to it. ^vVhcn what is obviously the regulat- 



56 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



nig power has quitted its hold, whether of the material or 
the spiritual mechanism, we distinctly recognise of each that 
t is not in its natural state but in a state of disorder, arising 
in the one case from the wear of the materials or from 
some shake that the machinery has received, arising in the 
other case either from some incidental disturbance, or from 
some inherent frailty and defect that attaches to the crea- 
ture.] There is a depth of mystery in every thing con- 
nected with the existence or the origin of evil in crea- 
tion ; yet, even in the fiercest uproar of our stormy passions, 
Conscience, though in her softest whispers, gives to the 
supremacy of rectitude the voice of an undying testimony, 
and her light still shining in a dark place, her un quelled 
accents still heard in the loudest outcry of Nature's 
rebellious appetites, form the strongest argument within 
reach of the human faculties, that, in spite of all partial or 
temporary derangements, Supreme Power and Supreme 
Goodness are at one. It is true that rebellious man hath 
with daring footstep, trampled on the lessons of Conscience; 
but why, in spite of man's perversity, is Conscience, on the 
other hand, able to lift a voice so piercing and so powerful, 
by which to remonstrate against the wrong, and to reclaim 
the honours that are due to her ? How comes it that, in the 
mutiny and uproar of the inferior faculties, that a faculty in 
man, which wears the stamp and impress of the Highest 
should remain on the side of truth and holiness? "Would 
humanity have been thus moulded by a false and evil spirit ; 
or would he have committed such impolicy against himself 
as to insert in each member of our species a principle which 
would make him feel the greatest complacency in his own 
rectitude, when he feels the most high-minded revolt of in- 
dignation and dislike against the Being who gave him birth ? 
It is not so much that Conscience takes a part among the 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



57 



other faculties of our nature ; but that Conscience takes 
among them the part of a governor, and that man, if he do 
not obey her suggestions, still, in despite of himself, acknow- 
ledges her rights. It is a mighty argument for the virtue 
of the Governor above, that all the laws and injunctions of 
the governor below are on the side of virtue. It seems as if 
He had left this representative, or remaining witness, for 
Himself, in a world that had cast off its allegiance; and that, 
from the voice of the judge within the breast, we may learn 
the will and the character of Him who hath invested with 
such authority his dictates. It is this which speaks as much 
more demonstratively for the presidency of a righteous God 
in human affairs, than for that of impure or unrighteous 
demons, as did the rod of Aaron, when it swallowed the rods 
of the enchanters and magicians in Egypt. In the wildest 
anarchy of man's insurgent appetites and sins, there is still 
a reclaiming voice — a voice which, even when in practice 
disregarded, it is impossible not to own ; and to which, at 
the very moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that 
we cannot refuse the homage of what we ourselves do feel and 
acknowledge to be the best, the highest principles of our 
nature. 

[12. The question then is, would any other than a God of 
righteousness have made creatures of such a moral constitu- 
tion at the first — and, however inexplicable its subsequent 
derangement may be, would He have left a conscience in 
every breast which gave such powerful testimony to the 
worth and the permanent importance of morality ? Shaded 
in all its original lineaments as the character of man now is, 
and dethroned although virtue be from the actual sove- 
reignty, is there not still amongst us a general and abiding 
sense of her rightful sovereignty ? "Would even this imper- 
fect but universal homage continue to be given, were it a 



58 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



wicked Being who presided over the great family of Nature, 
or breathed life and spirit and sentiment into the human 
framework ? "Would he have placed so deeply within us that 
faculty by which as if with moral compulsion we are con- 
strained to hold in supreme reverence, the goodness which 
in all its characteristics is the reverse and the counterpart of 
his own nature? "Would he have endowed the creatures 
which himself hath made with an admiration of all that is 
most opposite to himself — and how, if He be unrighteous 
hath he put into every bosom such an indelible sense of the 
obligation and precedency of righteousness ? Righteous- 
ness does not bear actual and unexcepted rule in the world 
— but there is a conscience in every man, w r hich proclaims 
that this rule it ought to have, and that though wrested from 
it, it is by the force of principles which are felt to be in their 
own nature inferior to Conscience. Had there been no Con- 
science in man, each propensity may at times have had its 
own temporary sway — as if gods of unequal strength shared 
the dominion over them. But there being a Conscience* 
invested with a rightful if not with an actual ascendency 
which still keeps a remaining hold of our nature, and within 
the recesses of a Moral System, in evident disorder still 
causes its voice to be heard— this phenomenon, of itself, 
gives a blow to impure Polytheism, or at least degrades 
each member thereof to the rank of an inferior deity. The 
question is whether He be a good or an evil spirit who pre- 
sides over the destinies of our species. Were he an un- 
righteous God who has full sway over us, why is Conscience,, 
that faculty which disowns unrighteousness and outlaws h% 
permitted by him to assume the rank of an arbiter, and not 
only to speak but to speak as one having authority ? If the 
actual Artificer of man's moral mechanism be a wicked or 
a, malignant spirit, it seems inexplicable that he should have 



THE SUPREMACY OP COSSCIEKCE. 



59 



placed such a judge and arbiter within us — one who bore 
constant testimony against the wrongness and the worthless- 
ness of his own character. Thus to have written reproach 
against himself in every heart is just as inexplicable as if he 
had legiblv written his own disgrace upon every forehead. 
It is true on the other hand, that if he be a righteous Grod 
who governs our world, Humanity is in a state of revolt 
against him — the result however not of the principles but 
of the passions, or of what Humanity itself judges and feels 
to be the inferior of its faculties — still He is borne witness 
to by that within the breast which claims to be the superior, 
the supreme faculty, and which obviously announces itself 
to be if not de facto, at least de jure the ruling power.] 

13. However difficult from the very simplicity of the 
subject it may be to state or to reason the argument for a 
God, which is founded on the supremacy of conscience — 
still, historically and experimentally, it will be found, that it 
is of more force than all other arguments put together, for 
originating and upholding the natural theism which there is 
in the world. The theology of conscience is not only of 
wider diffusion, but of far more practical influence than the 
theology of academic demonstration. The ratiocination by 
which this theology is established, is not the less firm or the 
less impressive, that, instead of a lengthened process, there 
is but one step between the premises and the conclusion — 
or, that the felt presence of a judge within the breast, 
powerfully and immediately suggests the notion of a Supreme 
Judge and Sovereign, who placed it there. Upon this ques- 
tion, the mind does not stop short at mere abstraction ; but, 
passing at once from the abstract to the concrete, from the 
law of the heart, it makes the rapid inference of a lawgiver. 
It is the very rapidity of this inference which makes it appear 
like intuition; and which has given birth to the mystic 



60 



THE SUPREMACY OP 



CONSCIENCE. 



theology of innate ideas. Yet the theology of conscience 
disclaims such mysticism, built, as it is, on a foundation of 
sure and sound reasoning ; for the strength of an argumen- 
tation in nowise depends upon the length of it. The sense 
of a governing principle within, begets in all men the senti- 
ment of a living Governor without and above them, and it 
does so with all the speed of an instantaneous feeling ; yet 
it is not an impression, it is an inference notwithstanding — 
and as much so as any inference from that which is seen, to 
that which is unseen. There is, in the first instance, 
cognizance taken of a fact — if not by the outward eye, yet as 
good, by the eye of consciousness, which has been termed the 
faculty of internal observation. And the consequent belief 
of a God, instead of being an instinctive sense of the 
Divinity, is the fruit of an inference grounded on that fact. 
There is instant transition made, from the sense of a monitor 
within to the faith of a living Sovereign above ; and this 
argument, described by all, but with such speed as almost to 
warrant the expression of its being felt by all, may be 
regarded, notwithstanding the force and fertility of other 
considerations, as the great prop of natural religion among 
men. 

[14. At all events, it is of the utmost value in Theology — 
that there should be so much of Truth and of supremely 
important Truth placed so near us as to be laid hold of 
immediately by the mind ; without the intervention of 
reasoning and without any sensible exertion on the part of 
the discursive faculty, or of that faculty by which it is, that 
we arrive at some distant conclusion by a train of inferences. 
Such for example are those truths which are seen, not 
merely in the light of the external senses but in the light of 
consciousness, and which instantly become manifest on the 
attention of the mind being turned towards them. There 



THE SUPREMACY OF CO^SCIE^CE. 



Gl 



needs in these instances no lengthened argumentation to 
carry the belief — for the thing in question becomes palpable 
by our own vivid and intimate consciousness of our own 
nature. The supremacy of Conscience is one of those truths 
— not come at by a series of stepping-stones — but seen at 
once, in the light of what may be termed an instant manifes- 
tation. Now certain it is, that this Pact or Phenomenon in 
our nature, depones strongly both for a Grod and for the 
supreme righteousness of His Nature. But it depones 
to these immediately ; or, at most, there is but one inferen- 
tial step which leads from the consciousness of what we feel 
to be in ourselves, to the impression of what we apprehend 
to be in Him from whom Ave derived our constitution and 
our being. There may here be one transition from the pre- 
mises to the conclusion — but done with such rapidity by the 
mind that it is not conscious of an argument. And this it 
is, we believe, which has given a certain innate or a prior 
character to some of the notions and feelings of Natural 
Theism. They may be soundly bottomed notwithstanding 
— so that though mingled with the fears or the fancies of 
superstition, we can discern the substantial workings of 
Truth and Reason on the subject of a God, even in countries 
of grossest Heathenism. For the felt supremacy of Con- 
science established even there, a certain natural regimen of 
Morality — and gave the impression of a Jurisprudence 
wherewith the idea of an avenger and judge stood irresis- 
tibly associated. The Law written on the Heart suggested 
a Lawgiver however indistinct their personification of him 
may have been. Even the barbarous Theology of Greece 
and Eome, impure and licentious as it was, did not wholly 
obliterate what may be called the Theology of Natural 
Conscience.] 

15. And we mistake, if we think it was ever otherwise 



62 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



even in the ages of darkest and most licentious paganism. 
This theology of conscience has often been greatly obscured , 
but never, in any country or at any period in the history of 
the world, has it been wholly obliterated. "We behold the 
vestiges of it in the simple theology of the desert ; and, 
perhaps, more distinctly there, than in the complex supersti- 
tions of an artificial and civilized heathenism. In confirma- 
tion of this, we might quote the invocations to the Great 
Spirit from the wilds of North America. But, indeed, in 
every quarter of the globe, where missionaries have held con- 
verse with savages, even with the rudest of Nature's 
children — when speaking on the topics of sin and judgment, 
they did not speak to them in vocables unknown. And as 
this sense of a universal law and a Supreme Lawgiver 
never waned into total extinction among the tribes of 
ferocious and untamed wanderers— so neither was it 
altogether stifled by the refined and intricate polytheism of 
more enlightened nations. The whole of classic authorship 
teems with allusions to a Supreme Governor and Judge : and 
when the guilty Emperors of Borne were tempest-driven by 
remorse and fear, it was not that they trembled before a 
spectre of their own imagination. "When terror mixed, 
which it often did, with the rage and cruelty of Nero, it was 
the theology of conscience which haunted him. It was not 
the suggestion of a capricious fancy which gave him the 
disturbance — but a voice issuing from the deep recesses of a 
moral nature, as stable and uniform throughout the species 
.as is the material structure of humanity ; and in the 
lineaments of which we may read that there is a moral 
regimen among men, and therefore a moral Governor who 
hath instituted, and who presides over it. Therefore it was 
that these imperial despots, the worst and haughtiest of 
recorded monarchs, stood aghast at the spectacle of their own 



THE STTPBEMACT OF CQKSCIEtfCE. 



03 



worthlessness. It is true, there is a wretchedness which 
naturally and essentially belongs to a state of great moral 
unhingement ; and this may account for their discomforts, 
but it will not account for their fears. They may, because 
of this, have felt the torments of a present misery. But 
whence their fears of a coming vengeance ; they would not 
have trembled at nature's law, apart from the thought of 
nature's Lawgiver. The imagination of an unsanctioned 
law would no more have given disquietude, than the ima- 
gination of a vacant throne. But the latv, to their guilty 
apprehensions, bespoke a judge. The throne of heaven, 
to their troubled eye, was filled by a living monarch. Bighte- 
ousness, it was felt, would not have been so enthroned in 
the moral system of man, had it not been previously en- 
throned in the system of the universe ; nor would it have 
held such place and pre-eminence in the judgment of all 
spirits, had not the Bather of spirits been its friend and 
ultimate avenger. This is not a local or geographical notion. 
It is a universal feeling— to be found wherever men are 
found, because interwoven with the constitution of humanity. 
It is not, therefore, the peculiarity of one creed, or of one 
country. It circulates at large throughout the family of 
man. We can trace it in the theology of savage life ; nor is 
it wholly overborne by the artificial theology of a more 
complex and idolatrous paganism. Neither crime nor civili- 
zation can extinguish it ; and, whether in the " conscientia 
scelerum" of the fierce and frenzied Catiline, or in the 
tranquil contemplative musings of Socrates and Cicero, we 
find the impression of at once a righteous and a reigning 
Sovereign. 

[16. "With this felt Supremacy of Conscience, we cannot 
rid ourselves of the impression that whatever the actual 
power or prevalence of vice may be in the world, it is but 



64 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



the tumult and insurrection of lower against higher ele_ 
ments— and that moral rectitude still undislodged from its 
empire in the pure region of Sentiment and Thought, sits 
aloft as it were in empyreal dignity ; and from an eminence 
whence no Power in Earth or Heaven can dethrone her, 
commands the homage of all that is best and worthiest in 
Nature. "When there is war betwixt Opinion and Force, 
the latter may have the physical ascendency, yet the former 
is ever counted the nobler antagonist — and thus it is, 
that although vice* should have enlisted under its standard of 
rebellion all the families of mankind, there remains the 
moral greatness of Virtue, as erect in the consciousness of 
its strength as if it had the public mind of the Universe 
upon its side. It is difficult to resist the feeling, that 
amid all the mystery of present appearances, the highest 
power is at one with the highest principle. And it con- 
firms still more our idea of a government — that conscience 
not only gives forth her mandates w r ith the tone and 
authorhy of a Superior; but, as if on purpose to en- 
force their observance, thus follows them up with an 
obvious discipline of rewards and punishments. It is 
enough but to mention, on the one hand, that felt com- 
placency which is distilled, like some precious elixir, upon 
the heart by the recollection of virtuous deeds and vir- 
tuous sacrifices ; and, on the other [hand, those inflictions 
of remorse, which are attendant upon wickedness, and 
wherewith, as if by the whip of a secret tormentor, the 
heart of every conscious sinner is agonized. "We discern 
in these the natural sanctions of morality, and the moral 
character of Him who hath ordained them. "We cannot 
otherwise explain the peace and triumphant satisfaction 
which spring from the consciousness of well-doing — nor can 
we otherwise explain the degradation, as well as bitter 



THE SUPBEMJLCY Or CO'SCIE^CE. 



65 



distress, which a sense of demerit brings along with it. 
Our only adequate interpretation of these phenomena is. 
that they are the present remunerations or the present 
chastisements of a God who loveth righteousness, and who 
hateth iniquity. Nor do we view them as the conclusive 
results of virtue and vice, but rather as the tokens and the 
precursors either of a brighter reward, or of a heavier 
vengeance, that are cominsr. It is thus that the delight of 
self-approbation, instead of standing alone, brings hope in its 
train ; and remorse, instead of standing alone, brings terror 
in its train. The expectations of the future are blended 
with these joys and sufferings of the present ; and all serve 
still more to stamp an impression, of which traces are to be 
found in every quarter of the earth — that we live under a 
retributive economy, and that the God who reigns over ir 
takes a moral and judicial cognizance of the creatures whom 
He hath formed. 

17. What then are the specific injunctions of conscience ? 
Yot on this question essentially depends every argument 
that we can derive from this power or property of our 
nature, for the moral character of God. If, on the one 
hand, the lessons given forth by a faculty, which so mani- 
festly claims to be the pre-eminent and ruling faculty of 
our nature, be those of deceit and licentiousness and cruelty 
— then, from the character of such a law, should we infer 
the character of the Lawgiver ; and so feel the conclusion 
to be inevitable, that we are under the government of a 
malignant and unrighteous God, at once the patron of vice 
and the persecutor of virtue in the world. If, on the other 
hand, temperance and chastity and kindness and integrity 
and truth, be the mandates which generally, if not invariably, 
proceed from her — then, on the same principles of judgment 
should we reckon that He, who is the author of conscience, 

r 



66 



THE STJPKEMACY 0E COKSCIE^CE. 



and who gave it the place of supremacy and honour, which 
it so obviously possesses in the moral system of man, was 
himself the friend and the exemplar of all those virtues 
which enter into the composition of perfect moral rectitude. 
In the laws and the lessons of human conscience, would we 
study the character of the Grodhead, j ast as we should study 
the views and dispositions of a monarch, in the instructions 
given by him to the viceroy of one of his provinces. If, on 
the one hand, virtue be prescribed by the authority of 
conscience, and followed up by her approval, in which very 
approval there is felt an inward satisfaction and serenity of 
spirit, that of itself forms a most delicious reward ; and if, 
on the other hand, the perpetrations of wickedness are- 
followed up by the voice of her rebuke, in which, identical 
with remorse, there is a sting of agony and discomfort, 
amounting to the severest penalty — then, are we as naturally 
disposed to infer of Him, who ordained such a mental 
constitution, that He is the righteous Governor of men, as 
if, seated on a visible throne in the midst of us, He had 
made the audible proclamation of His law, and by His own 
immediate hand had distributed of His gifts to the obedient, 
and inflicted chastisements on the rebellious. The law of 
conscience may be regarded as comprising all those virtues 
which the hand of the Deity hath inscribed on the tablet of 
the human heart, or on the tablet of natural jurisprudence ; 
and an argument for these being the very virtues which cha- 
racterise and adorn Himself, is that they must have been 
transcribed from the prior tablet of His own nature. 

18. We are sensible that there is much to obscure this 
inference in the actual circumstances of the world. More 
especially-— it has been alleged, on the side of scepticism, that 
there is an exceeding diversity of moral judgments among 
men ; that, out of the multifarious decisions of the human* 



THE SUPREMACY OE CO'SCIEXCE. 



67 



conscience, no consistent code of virtue can be framed ; and 
that, therefore, no consistent character can be ascribed to 
Him who planted this faculty in the bosom of our species, 
and bade it speak so uncertainly and so variously.* But to 
this it may be answered, in the first place, that the apparent 
diversity is partly reducible into the binding, or, at least, the 
distorting effect of passion and interest, which sometimes are 
powerful enough to obscure our perception, even of mathe- 
matical and historical truths, as well as of moral distinctions ; 
and without therefore affecting the stability of either. It is 
thus, for example, that mercantile cupidity has blinded many 
a reckless adventurer to the enormous injustice of the slave- 
trade ; that passion and interest together have transmuted 
revenge into a virtue ; and that the robbery, which if prose- 
cuted only for the sake of individual gain, would have ap- 
peared to all under an aspect of most revolting selfishness, 
puts on the guise of patriotism, when a whole nation deliber- 
ates on the schemes, or is led by a career of daring and 
lofty heroism, to the spoliations of conquest. In all such 
cases, it is of capital importance to distinguish between the 
real character of any criminal action, when looked to calmly, 
comprehensively, and fully ; and what that is in the action 
which the perpetrator singles out and fastens upon as his 

* On the uniformity of our moral judgments, we would refer to the 
?4th and ?5th of Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human 
Mind. "If we bear in mind," says Sir James Macintosh, " that the 
question relates to the coincidence of all men in considering the same quali- 
ties as virtues, and not to the preference of one class of virtues by some, 
and of a ditfereut class by others, the* exceptions from the agreement of 
mankind, in their systems of practical morality, will be reduced to absolute- 
insignificance ; and we shall learn to view them as no more affecting- the 
harmony of the moral faculties, than the resemblance of the limbs and 
features is affected by monstrous conformations, or by the unfortunate 
effects of accident and disease in a very few individuals." 



THE SUPREMACY 0E CONSCIENCE. 



plea, when lie is either defending it to others, or reconciling 
it to his own conscience. In as far as he knows the deed to 
be incapable of vindication, and yet rushes on the per- 
formance of it, there is but delinquency of conduct incurred, 
not a diversity of moral judgment ; nor does Conscience, in 
this case, at all betray any caprice or uncertainty in her 
decisions. It is but the conduct, and not the conscience, 
which is in fault : and to determine whether the latter is in 
aught chargeable with fluctuation, we must look not to the 
man's performance, but to his plea. Two men may differ as 
to the moral character of an action ; but if each is resting 
the support of his own view on a different principle from the 
other, there may still be a perfect uniformity of moral sen- 
timent between them. They own the authority of the same 
laws : they only disagree in the application of them. In the 
first place, the most vehement denouncer of a guilty com- 
merce is at one with the most strenuous of its advocates, on 
the duty which each man owes to his family; and, again, 
neither of them would venture to maintain the lawfulness of 
the trade, because of the miseries inflicted by it on those 
wretched, sufferers who were its victims. The defender of 
this ruthless and rapacious system disowns not, in sentiment 
*tt least, however much he may disown in practice, the 
obligations of justice and humanity — nay, in all the pallia- 
tions which he attempts of the enormity in question, he 
speaks of these as undoubted virtues, and renders the homage 
of his moral acknowledgments to them all. In the sophistry 
of his vindication the principles of the ethical system, are 
left untouched and entire. Tie meddles not with the vir- 
tuousness either of humanity or justice ; but he tells of the 
humanity of slavers, and the justice of slavery. It is true, 
that he heeds not the representations which are given of 
the atrocities of his trade — that he does not attend because 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE, 



69 



be wills nor to attend ; and in this there is practical unfair- 
ness. Still it but resolves itself into perversity of conduct 
and not into perversity of sentiment. The very dread and 
dislike he has for the informations of the subject, are symp- 
toms of a feeling that his conscience cannot be trusted with 
the question ; or, in other words, prove him to be possessed 
of a conscience which is just like that of other men. The 
partialities of interest and feeling may give rise to an infinite 
diversity of moral judgments in our estimate of actions ; 
while there may be the most perfect uniformity and stability 
of judgment in our estimate of principles : and, on all the 
great generalities of the ethical code, conscience may speak 
the same language, and own one and the same moral directory 
all the world over. 

19. When consciences then pronounce differently of the 
same action, it is for the most part, or rather, it is almost 
always, because understandings view it differently. It is 
either because the controversialists are regarding it with un- 
equal degrees of knowledge ; or, each, through the medium 
of his own partialities. The consciences of all would come 
forth with the same moral decision, were all equally enlight- 
ened in the circumstances, or in the essential relations and 
consequences of the deed in question ; and what is just as es- 
sential to this uniformity of judgment, were all viewing it 
fairly as well as fully. It matters not, whether it be igno- 
rantly or wilfully, that each is looking to this deed, but in the 
one aspect, or in the one relation, that is favourable to his 
own peculiar sentiment. In either case, the diversity of 
judgment on the moral qualities of the same action, is just 
as little to be wondered at as a similar diversity on the mate- 
rial qualities of the same object — should any of the specta- 
tors labour under an involuntary defect of vision, or volunta- 
rily persist either in shutting or in averting his eyes. It is 



70 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



thus that a quarrel has well been termed a mi sunder stand- 
ing, in which each of the combatants may consider, and often 
honestly consider, himself to be in the right ; and that, on 
reading the hostile memorials of two parties in a litigation 
we can perceive no difference in their moral principles, but 
only in their historical statements ; and that, in the public 
manifestoes of nations when entering upon w^ar, we can dis- 
cover no trace of a contrariety of conflict in their ethical sys- 
tems, but only in their differently put or differently coloured 
representations of fact — all proving, that, with the utmost 
diversity of judgment among men respecting the moral quali- 
ties of the same thing, there may be a perfect identity of 
structure in their moral organs notwithstanding ; and that 
Conscience, true to her office, needs but' to be rightly in- 
formed, that she may speak the same language, and give forth 
the same lessons, in all the countries of the earth. 

20. It is this which explains the moral peculiarities of dif- 
ferent nations. It is not that justice, humanity, and grati- 
tude, are not the canonized virtues of every region ; or that 
falsehood, cruelty, and fraud, would not, in their abstract 
and unassociated nakedness, be viewed as objects of moral 
antipathy and rebuke. It is, that in one and the same 
material action, when looked to in all the lights of which, 
whether in reality or by the power of imagination, it is 
susceptible, various, nay, opposite moral characteristics 
may be blended ; and that while one people looked to the 
good only without the evil, another may look to the evil 
only without the good. And thus the identical acts which 
in one nation are the subjects of a most reverent and reli- 
gious observance, may in another be regarded with a shud- 
dering sense of abomination and horror. And this, not be- 
cause of any difference in what may be termed the moral cate- 
gories of the two people, nor because, if moral principles in 



THE SUPREMACY OE COXSCTE^CE. 



71 



their unmixed generality were offered to the contemplation 
of either, either would call evil good, or good evil. When 
theft was publicly honoured and rewarded in Sparta, it was 
not because theft itself was reckoned a good thing ; but be- 
cause patriotism, and dexterity, and those services by which 
the interests of patriotism might be supported, were reck- 
oned to be good things. When the natives of Hindostan 
assemble with delight around the agonies of a human sacri- 
fice, it is not because they hold it good to rejoice in a spec- 
tacle of pain ; but because they hold it good to rejoice in 
a spectacle of heroic devotion to the memory of the dead. 
"When parents are exposed or children are destroyed, it is 
not because it is deemed to be right, that there should be 
the infliction of misery for its own sake ; but because it is 
deemed to be right that the wretchedness of old age should 
be curtailed, or that the world should be saved from the 
miseries of an over-crowded species. In a word, in the very 
. worst of these anomalies, some form of good may be detected, 
which has led to their establishment ; and still, some univer- 
sal and undoubted principle of morality, however perverted 
or misapplied, can be alleged in vindication of them. A 
people may be deluded by their ignorance ; or misguided by 
their superstition ; or, not only hurried into wrong deeds, but 
even -fostered into wrong sentiments, under the influences 
of that cupidity or revenge, which are so perpetually operating 
•in the warfare of savage or dcmisavage nations. Tet, in spite 
of all the topical moralities to which these have given birth, 
there is an unquestioned and universal morality notwithstand- 
ing. And in every case, where the moral sense is unfettered 
by these associations, and the judgment is uncramped, either 
by the partialities of interests, or by the inveteracy of national 
customs which habit and antiquity have rendered sacred — 
Conscience is found to speak the same language ; nor, to the 



72 



THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



remotest ends of the world, is there a country or an island 
where the same uniform and consistent voice is not heard 
from her. Let the mists of ignorance aud passion and 
artificial education be only cleared away ; and the moral attri - 
butes of goodness and righteousness and truth be seen im- 
distorted, and in their own proper guise ; and there is not a 
heart or a conscience throughout the earth's teeming popu- 
lation, which could refuse to do them homage. And it is 
precisely because the Father of the human family has given 
such hearts and consciences to all His children, that we infer 
these to be the very sanctities of the Godhead, the very 
attributes of His own primeval nature. 

21. There is a countless diversity of tastes in the world 
because of the infinitely various circumstances and associa- 
tions of men. Yet is there a stable and correct standard 
of taste notwithstanding, to which, all minds, that have the 
benefit of culture and enlargement, are gradually assimilating 
and approximating. It holds far more emphatically true, 
that, in spite of the diversity of moral judgments, which 
are vastly less wide and numerous than the former, there 
is a fixed standard of morals, rallying around itself all 
consciences, to the greater principles of which, a full and 
unanimous homage is rendered from every quarter of the 
globe ; and even to the lesser principles and modifications" 
of which, there is a growing and gathering consent, with 
every onward step in the progress of light and civilization. 
In proportion as the understandings of men become more 
enlightened, do their consciences become more accordant 
with each other. Even now there is not a single people on 
the face of the earth, among whom barbarity and licentious- 
ness and fraud are deified as virtues, — where it does not 
require the utmost strength, whether of superstition or of 
patriotism in its most selfish and contracted form, to uphold 



THE SUPREMACY OE CONSCIENCE. 



73 



the delusion. Apart from these local and, we venture to 
hope, these temporary exceptions, the same moralities are 
recognized and honoured ; and however prevalent in practice, 
in sentiment at least, the same vices are disowned and 
execrated all the world over. In proportion as superstition 
is dissipated, and prejudice is gradually weakened by the 
larger intercourse of nations, these moral peculiarities do 
evidently wear away ; till at length, if we may judge from 
the obvious tendency of things, Conscience will, in the full 
manhood of our species, assert the universality and the 
unchangeableness of her decisions. There is no speech nor 
language where her voice is not heard ; her line is gone 
out through all the earth ; and her words to the ends of the 
world. 

22. On the whole then, conscience, whether it be an 
original or a derived faculty, yet as founded on human 
nature, if not forming a constituent part of it, may be 
regarded as a faitftul witness for God the author of that 
nature, and as rendering to His character a consistent 
testimony. It is not necessary, for the establishment of 
our particular lesson, that we should turn that which is 
clear into that which is controversial by our entering into 
the scientific question respecting the physical origin of 
conscience, or tracing the imagined pedigree of its descent 
from simpler or anterior principles in the constitution of man. 
For, as has been well remarked by Sir James Macintosh — " If 
Conscience be inherent, that circumstance is, according to the 
common mode of thinking, a sufficient proof of its title to 
veneration. But if provision be made, in the constitution 
and circumstances of all men, for uniformity, producing it 
by processes similar to those which produce other acquired 
sentiments, may not our reverence be augmented by admira- 
tion of that supreme wisdom, which, in such mental con- 



74 



THE SUPREMACY. OE CONSCIENCE. 



trivances, yet more highly than in the lower world of 
matter, accomplishes mighty purposes by instruments so 
simple ?" It is not therefore the physical origin, but the 
fact, of the uniformity of conscience, wherewith is concerned 
the theological inference that we attempt to draw from it. 
This ascendant faculty of our nature, which has been so 
often termed the Divinity within us, notwithstanding the 
occasional sophistry of the passions, is, on the whole, repre- 
sentative of the Divinity above us ; and the righteousness 
and goodness and truth, the lessons of which it gives forth 
every where, may well be regarded, both as the laws which 
enter into the juridical constitution, and as the attributes 
which enter into the moral character of Grod. 

23. W e admit a considerable diversity of moral observation 
in the various countries of the earth, but without admitting 
any correspondent diversity of moral sentiment between 
them. When human sacrifices are enforced and applauded 
in one nation — this is not because c$ their cruelty, but 
notwithstanding of their cruelty. Even there, the universal 
principle of humanity would be acknowledged, that it were 
wrong to inflict a wanton and uncalled for agony on any of 
our fellows — but there is a local superstition which counter- 
acts the universal principle, and overbears it. When in 
the republic of Sparta, theft, instead of being execrated as 
a crime, was dignified into an art and an accomplishment, 
and on that footing admitted into the system of their 
youthful education — it was not because of its infringement 
on the rights of property, but notwithstanding : of that 
infringement, and only because a local patriotism made 
head against the universal principle, and prevailed over it. 
Apart from such disturbing forces as these, it will be found 
that the sentiments of men gravitate towards one and the 
same standard all over the globe ; and that, when once the 



THE SUPEEMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 



75 



obscurations of superstition and selfishness are dissipated, 
there will be found the same moral light in every mind, a 
recognition of the same moral law, as the immutable and 
eternal code of righteousness for all countries and all ages. 
The following is the noble testimony of a heathen, who tells 
us with equal eloquence and truth, that, even amid all the 
perversities of a vitiated and endlessly diversified creed, 
Conscience sat mistress over the whole earth, and asserted 
the supremacy of her own unalterable obligations. " Est 
quidem vera lex, recta ratio, natural congruens, diffusa in 
omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium jubendo, 
vetando a fraude deterreat ; quae tamen neque probos 
frustra jubet aut vetat, nec improbos jubendo aut vetando 
mo vet. Huic legi nec obrogari fas est, neque derogari ex 
hac aliquid licet, neque tota abrogari potest. Xec vero, 
aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus. 
Keque est quaerendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius. 
]Sec erit alia lex Bomae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia 
posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore, una lex et 
sempiterna et immortalis continebit ; unusque erit com- 
munis quasi magister, et imperator omnium Deus ille, legis 
lmjus inventor, disceptator, lator ; cni qui non parebit, ipse 
se fugiet, ac naturam hominis aspernabitur, atque hoc ipso 
luet maximas pcenas, etiam si caetera supplicia quae putantur 
effugerit." 

24. Such then is our first argument for the moral character 
of Grod [and which, as a character implies an existence, 
might be resolved into an argument for the being of God] 
— even the moral character of the law of conscience ; 
that conscience which He hath inserted among the faculties 
of our nature ; and armed with the felt authority of a master ; 
and furnished with sanctions for the enforcement of its 
dictates ; and so framed, that, apart from local perver- 



76 



THE SUPREMACY CE CONSCIENCE. 



sities of the understanding or the habits, all its decisions are 
on the side of righteousness. The inference is neither a 
distant nor an obscure one, from the character of such a law 
to the character of its Lawgiver. Neither is it an inference, 
destroyed by the insurrection which has taken place on the 
part of our lower faculties, or by the actual prevalence of vice 
in the world. For this has only enabled Conscience to come 
forth with another and additional demonstration of its sove- 
reignty—just as the punishment of crime in society bears 
evidence to the justice of the government which is established 
there. In general the inward complacency felt by the vir- 
tuous, does not so impressively bespeak the real purpose and 
character of this the ruling faculty in man, as do the remorse, 
and the terror, and the bitter dissatisfaction, wherewith the 
hearts of the wicked are exercised. It is true, that, by every 
act of iniquity, outrage is done to the law of conscience ; but 
there is a felt reaction within, which tells that the outrage is 
resented ; and then it is that conscience makes most emphatic 
assertion of its high prerogative, when, instead of coming 
forth as the benign and generous dispenser of its rewards to 
the obedient, it comes forth like an offended monarch in the 
character of an avenger. Were we endowed with prophetic 
vision, so as to behold, among the yet undisclosed secrets of 
futurity the spectacle of a judge, and a judgment-seat, and 
an assembled world, and the retributions of pleasure and 
pain to the good and to the evil ; this were fetching from afar 
an argument for the righteousness of God. But the instant 
pleasure and the instant pain wherewith conscience follows 
up the doings of man, brings this very argument within the 
limits of actual observation. Only, instead of being mani- 
fested by the light of a preternatural revelation, it is sug- 
gested to us by one of the most familiar certainties of 
experience ; for in these phenomena and feelings of our 



THE SUPKEILACT 0E COIN'S CIE>~CE. 



own moral nature, do we behold not only a present judgment, 
but a present execution of the sentence. 

[25. Some perhaps may imagine the same sort of transition 
in this reasoning from the abstract to the cencrete, that there 
is in the a priori argument. The abettors of this argument 
talk of our notion of any part of space as an inch, being but 
itself a part of our entire and original notion of immensity : 
and in like manner, that our notion of any part of time as an 
hour, is but part of the entire and original notion of eter- 
nity that is in every mind. They regard our ideas of infinite 
space and infinite time as belonging to the simplest elements 
of Thought ; and that therefore the certainty of the things 
which they represent, carries in it all the light and authority 
of a first principle. And then upon the maxim that every 
attribute or quality implies a substantive Being in which it 
resides, they step from the abstract to the concrete, from 
the infinite extent and the infinite duration to an infinitely 
extended and an infinitely enduring God. AYe confess, 
though it should be called a similar transition from the 
abstract to the concrete, that we feel vastly greater confidence 
in passing by inference from a Law to a Lawgiver. The supre- 
macy of Conscience is a fact in the constitution of human 
nature — seen in the light of consciousness by each man, of 
his own individual specimen ; and verified in the light of 
observation, as extending to every other specimen within the 
compass of his knowledge. And however quick the inference 
may be from the supremacy of Conscience within the breast, 
to the Supreme Power who established it there being him- 
•self a righteous Sovereign — yet this is strictly an argument 
u posteriori both for the Being and the Character of God. It 
is the strongest we apprehend, which jNTature furnishes for 
il\e Moral Perfections of the Deity ; and even with all minds, 
or certainly with most minds, the most effective argument 



78 



PLEASURE OE VIRTUOUS, AND 



for His Existence — though ushered into the creed of Nature 
not by a train of inferences, but by the light of an 
almost immediate perception. It is thus that in our first 
addresses to any human Being on the subject of religion, 
we may safely presume a God, without entering on the 
proof of a God. He has already the lesson within himself 
— and it is a lesson which tells him more, or at least speaks 
to him with greater force than the whole of external Nature. 
Instead of bidding him look to its collocations, he will be 
more powerfully impressed and occupied with the idea of a 
God, if he but hearken to the voice of his own Conscience, 
It gave direct suggestion of a ruling and a righteous Grod s 
even in the days of corrupted Paganism. And still with the 
unlettered of our present day and apart from the light of 
Christianity, along with the popular demonology of inferior 
spirits, there is the paramount impression of a one moral 
Governor among men.] 



CHAPTEE II. 

SECOND GENERAL ARGUMENT. 

On the inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and 
Misery of Vicious Affections. 

1. "We are often told by moralists, that there is a native 
and essential happiness in moral worth ; and a like native 
and essential wretchedness in moral depravity— insomuch 
that the one may be regarded as its own reward, and the 
other as its own punishment. "We do not always recollect 
that this happiness on the one hand, and this misery on 
the other, are each of them made up, severally of distinct 



MISERY OP TICIOUS AITECTIO^S. 



79 



ingredients ; and that thus, by mental analysis, we might 
strengthen onr argument both for the being and the cha- 
racter of God. "When we discover, that, into this alleged 
happiness of the good there enter more enjoyments than 
one, we thereby obtain two or more testimonies of the 
Divine regard for virtue ; and the proof is enhanced, in the 
same peculiar way that the evidence of design is, in any 
other department of creation, when we perceive the concur- 
rence of so many separate and independent elements, which 
meet together for the production of some complex and bene- 
ficial result.* 

2. We have already spoken of one such ingredient. 
There is a felt satisfaction in the thought of having done 
what we know to be right ; and, in counterpart to this 
complacency of self-approbation, there is a felt discomfort, 
amounting often to bitter and remorseful agony, in the 
thought of having done what conscience tells us to be wrong. 
This implies a sense of the rectitude of what is virtuous. 
But without thinking of its rectitude at all, without viewing 
it in reference either to the law of conscience or to the law 
of God, with no regard to jurisprudence in the matter — 
there is, in the virtuous affection itself, another and a 
distinct enjoyment. We ought to cherish and to exercise 
benevolence ; and there is a pleasure in the consciousness 
of doing what we ought : but beside this moral sentiment, 
and beside the peculiar pleasure appended to benevolence 
as moral, there is a sensation in the merely physical affection 
of benevolence ; and that sensation, of itself, is in the 
highest degree pleasurable. The primary or instant grati- 
fication which there is in the direct and immediate feeling 
of benevolence is one thing : the secondary or reflex gratifi- 



* See Introductory Chapter — 6. 



so 



PLEASURE Or VIRTUOUS, AND 



cation which there is in the consciousness of benevolence as 
moral is another thing. The two are distinct of themselves ; 
hut the contingent union of them, in the case of every 
virtuous affection, gives a multiple force to the conclusion, 
that God is the lover, and, because so, the patron or the 
re warder of virtue. lie hath so constituted our nature, 
that, in the very flow and exercise of the good affections, 
there shall be the oil of gladness. There is instant delight 
in the first conception of benevolence. There is sustained 
delight in its continued exercise. There is consummated 
delight in the happy, smiling, and prosperous result of it. 
Kindness and honesty and truth are of themselves, and 
irrespective of their rightness, sweet unto the taste of the 
inner man. Malice, envy, falsehood, injustice, irrespective 
of their wrongness, have, of themselves, the bitterness of 
gall and wormwood. The Deity hath annexed a high 
mental enjoyment, not to the consciousness only of good affec- 
tions, but to the very sense and feeling of good affections. 
However closely these may follow on each other nay, 
however implicated or blended together they may be at the 
same moment into one compound state of feeling — they are 
not the less distinct on that account, of themselves. They 
form two pleasurable sensations, instead of one ; and their 
apposition, in the case of every virtuous deed or virtuous 
desire, exhibits to us that very concurrence in the world of 
mind, which obtains with such frequency and fulness in the 
world of matter— affording, in every new part that is added, 
not a simply repeated only, but a vastly multiplied evidence 
for design, throughout all its combinations. There is a plea- 
sure in the very sensation of virtue ; and there is a pleasure 
attendant on the sense of its rectitude. These two pheno- 
mena are independent of each other. Let there be a certain 
number of chances against the first in a random economy of 



MISEBT OE TICIOTJS AFFECTIONS. 



81 



things, and also a certain number of chances against the 
second. In the actual economy of things where there is the 
conjunction of both phenomena — it is the product of these 
two numbers which represents the amount of evidence 
afforded by them for a moral government in the world, and 
a moral Governor over them. 

3. In the calm satisfactions of virtue, this distinction 
may not be so palpable, as in the pungent and more vividly 
felt disquietudes which are attendant on the wrong affections 
of our nature. The perpetual corrosion of that heart, for 
example, which frets in unhappy peevishness all the day 
long, is plainly distinct from the bitterness of that remorse, 
which is felt in the recollection of its harsh and injurious 
outbreakings on the innocent sufferers within its reach. 
It is saying much for the moral character of God, that he 
lias placed a conscience within us, which administers painful 
rebuke on every indulgence of a wrong affection. But it is 
saying still more for such being the character of our Maker 
— so to have framed our mental constitution, that, in the 
very working of these bad affections there should be the 
painfulness of a felt discomfort and discordancy. Such is 
the make or mechanism of our nature, that it is thwarted 
and put out of sorts, by rage and envy and hatred; and 
this, irrespective of the adverse moral judgments which 
conscience passes upon them. Of themselves they are 
unsavoury ; and no sooner do they enter the heart, than 
they shed upon it an immediate distillation of bitterness. 
Just as the placid smile of benevolence bespeaks the felt 
comfort of benevolence ; so, in the frown and tempest of 
an angry countenance, do we read the unhappiness of that 
man who is vexed and agitated by his own malignant 
affections — eating inwardly as they do upon the vitals of 
his enjoyment. It is therefore that he is often styled, and 



82 



PLEASURE CE TIETUOrS, AlsV 



truly, a self-tormentor, or, his own worst enemy. The 
delight of virtue in itself, is a separate thing from the 
delight of the conscience which approves it. And the pain 
of moral evil in itself, is a separate thing from the pain 
inflicted by conscience in the act of condemning it. They 
offer to our notice two distinct ingredients, both of the 
present reward attendant upon virtue, and of the present 
penalty attendant upon vice ; and so, enhance the evidence 
that is before our eyes, for the moral character of that 
administration under which the world has been placed by 
its Author. The appetite of hunger is rightly alleged, 
11 evidence of the care wherewith the Deity hath provided 
for the wellbeing of our natural constitution ; and the 
pleasurable taste of food is rightly alleged as an additional 
proof of the same. And so, if the urgent voice of conscience 
within, calling us to virtue, be alleged in evidence of the 
care wherewith the Deity hath provided for the wellbeing 
of our moral constitution — the pleasurable taste of virtue 
in itself, with the bitterness of its opposite, may well be 
alleged as additional evidence thereof. They alike afford 
the/present and the sensible tokens of a righteous adminis- 
tration, and so of a righteous God. 

4. Our present argument is grounded, neither on the 
rectitude of virtue, nor on its .utility in the grosser and 
more palpable sense of that term — but on the immediate 
sweetness of- it. It is the office of conscience to tell us of 
its rectitude. It is by experience that we learn its utility. 
But the sweetness of it — the dulce of virtue, as distinguished 
from its utile, is a thing of instant sensation. It may be 
decomposed into two ingredients, with one of which con- 
science has to do — even the pleasure we have when any 
deed or any affection of ours receives from her a favourable 
verdict. But^it has another ingredient, which forms the 



WISEST OP YICIOT7S AFFECTIONS. 



83 



proper and the distinct argument that we are now urging — 
even the pleasure we have in the mere relish of the affection 
itself. If it be a proof of benevolence in God, that our 
external organs of taste should have been so framed as to 
have a liking for wholesome food — it is no less the proof 
both of a benevolent and a righteous Grod, so to have framed 
our mental economy, as that right and wholesome morality 
should be palatable to the taste of the inner man. Yirtue 
is not only seen to be right — it is felt to be delicious. 
There is happiness in the very wish to make others happy. 
There is a heart's ease or a heart's enjoyment, even in the 
first purposes of kindness, as well as in its subsequent 
performances. There is a certain rejoicing sense of clearness 
in the consistency, the exactitude, of justice and truth, 
There is a triumphant elevation of spirit in magnanimity 
and honour. In perfect harmony with this, there is a 
placid feeling of serenity and blissful contentment in gentle- 
ness and humility. There is a noble satisfaction in those 
victories, which, at the bidding of principle, or by the power 
of self-command may have been achieved over the propen- 
sities of animal nature. There is an elate independence of 
soul, in the consciousness of having nothing to hide, and 
nothing to be ashamed of. In a word, by the constitution 
of our nature, each virtue has its appropriate charm ; and 
virtue, on the whole, is a fund of varied, as well as of 
perpetual enjoyment, to him who hath imbibed its spirit, 
and is under the guidance of its principles. He feels all 
to be health and harmony within ; and without, he seems as 
if to breathe in an atmosphere of beauteous transparency — 
proving how much the nature of man and the nature of 
virtue are in unison with each other. It is hunger which 
urges to the use of food ; but it strikingly demonstrates the 
care and benevolence of Grod ? so to have framed the organ 



$4 



PLEASURE OE YIRTUOTJS, AND 



of taste, as that there shall be a superadded enjoyment in 
the use of it. It is conscience which urges to the practice 
of virtue ; but it serves to enhance the proof of a moral 
purpose, and therefore of a moral character in God, so to 
have framed our mental economy, that, in addition to the 
felt obligation of its rightness, virtne should of itself be so 
regaling to the taste of the inner man. 

5. In counterpart to these sweets and satisfactions of 
virtue, is the essential and inherent bitterness of all that is 
morally evil. We repeat, that with this particular argument 
we do not mix up the agonies of remorse. It is the wretch- 
edness of vice in itself, not the wretchedness which we suffer 
because of its recollected and felt wrongness, that Ave now 
speak of. It is not the painfulness of the compunction felt 
because of our anger, upon which we at this moment insist ; 
but the painfulness of the emotion itself: and the same 
remark applies to all the malignant desires of the human 
heart. True, it is inseparable from the very nature of a 
desire, that there must be some enjoyment or other, at the 
time of its gratification ; but, in the case of these evil affec- 
tions, it is not nnmixed enjoyment. The most ordinary 
observer of his own feelings, however incapable of analysis, 
must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking in full 
indulgence of his resentment on the man who has provoked 
or injured him, that all is not perfect and entire enjoyment 
within ; but that, in this, and indeed in every other malignant 
feeling, there is a sore burden of disquietude— anunhappiness 
tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured on the 
countenance. The ferocious tyrant who has only to issue 
forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the victim of 
his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and 
cruelty, which his fancy in the very waywardness of passion, 
unrestrained and power unbounded might suggest to him 



MISERY OF YICI0U8 AFFECTIONS. 



85 



— he may be said to have experienced through life a thousand 
gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge*, which, though 
ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease 
again every day of his life by some new execution. But we 
mistake it if we think otherwise than that, in spite of these 
distinct and very numerous, nay daily gratifications if he so 
choose, it is a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding. 
It seems indispensable to the nature of every desire, and to 
form part indeed of its very idea, that there should be a 
distinctly felt pleasure, or at least, a removal at the time of 
a distinctly felt pain, in the act of its fulfilment — yet, what- 
ever recreation or relief may have thus been rendered, with- 
out doing away the misery, often in the whole amount of it 
the intense misery, inflicted upon man by the evil propensi- 
ties of his nature. Who can doubt, for example, the unhap- 
p-iness of the habitual drunkard ? — and that, although the 
ravenous appetite, by which he is driven along a stormy 
career, meets every day, almost every hour of the day, with 
the gratification that is suited to it. The same may be 
equally affirmed of the voluptuary, or of the depredator, or 
of the extortioner, or of the liar. Each may succeed in the 
attainment of his specific object ; and we cannot possibly 
disjoin from the conception of success, the conception of 
some sort of pleasure — yet in perfect consistency, we affirm, 
with a sad and heavy burden of unpleasantness or unhap- 
piness on the whole. He is little conversant with our nature 
who does not know of many a passion belonging to it, that 
it may be the instrument of many pleasurable, nay delicious 
or exquisite sensations, and yet be a wretched passion still ; 
the domineering tyrant of a bondsman, who at once knows 
himself to be degraded, and feels himself to be unhappy. A 
sense of guilt is one main ingredient of this misery — yet 
physically, and notwithstanding the pleasure or the relief in- 



86. 



PLEASURE OE YIRTUOTJS, AND 



separable at the moment from every indulgence of ih& 
passions, there are other sensations of bitterness, which of 
themselves, and, apart from remorse, would cause the suffering 
to preponderate. 

6. There is an important discrimination made by Bishop 
Butler in his sermons ; and by the help of which, this phe- 
nomenon, of apparent contradiction or mystery in our na* 
ture, may be satisfactorily explained. He distinguishes 
between the final object of any of our desires, and the plea- 
sure attendant on, or rather inseparable from, its gratification. 
The object is not the pleasure, though the pleasure be an 
unfailing and essential accompaniment on the attainment of 
the object. This is well illustrated by the appetite of hunger, 
of which it were more proper to say that it seeks for food, 
than that it seeks for the pleasure which there is in eating 
the food. The food is the object ; the pleasure is the ac- 
companiment. We do not here speak of the distinct and 
secondary pleasure which there is in the taste of food, but of 
that other pleasure which strictly and properly attaches to 
the gratification of the appetite of hunger. This is the 
pleasure, or relief, which accompanies the act of eating p 
while the ultimate object, the object in which the appetite 
rests and terminates, is the food itself. The same is true of 
all our special affections. Each has a proper and peculiar 
object of its own, and the mere pleasure attendant on the: 
prosecution or the indulgence of the affection is not, as has 
been clearly established by Butler, and fully reasserted by 
3)r. Thomas Brown, is not that object. The two are as 
distinct from each other, as a thing loved is distinct from the 
pleasure of loving it. Every special inclination has its 
special and counterpart object. The object of the inclination 
is one thing ; the pleasure of gratifying the inclination is 
another ; and, in most instances, it were more proper to say^ 



MISERY OIT YICIOTTS ATPECTIONS. 



87 



that it is for the sake of the object than for the sake of the plea- 
sure that the inclination is gratified. The distinction that we 
now urge, though felt to be a subtle, is truly a substantial one, 
and pregnant both with important principle and important 
application. The discovery and clear statement of it by 
Butler may well be regarded as the highest service rendered 
by any philosopher to moral science ; and that, from the light 
which it casts, both on the processes of the human constitution 
and on the theory of virtue. As one example of the latter 
service, the principle in question, so plainly and convincingly 
unfolded by this great Christian philosopher in his sermon on 
the love of our neighbour, strikes, and with most conclusive 
effect, at the root of the selfish system of morals ; a system 
which professes that man's sole object, in the practice of all 
the various moralities, is his own individual advantage. * Now, 
in most cases of a special, and more particularly of a vir- 
tuous affection, it can be demonstrated, that the object is 
a something out of himself, and distinct from himself. Take 
compassion for one instance out of the many. The object 
of this affection is the relief of another's misery, and in the 
fulfilment of this does the affection meet with its full solace 
and gratification : that is, in a something altogether external 
from himself. It is true, that there is an appropriate plea- 
sure in the indulgence of this affection, even as there is in 
the indulgence of every other ; and in proportion, too, to the 
strength of the affection, will be the greatness of the plea- 
sure. The man who is doubly more compassionate than 
his fellow, will have doubly a greater enjoyment in the 

• [How is it that the utilitarians of our day make so little account of 
Butler, whom nevertheless some of them profess to idolize ? The truth is, 
that the distinction which he has established between the object of an af- 
fection and its accompanying' pleasure, strikes at the foundation of their 
system."] 



88 



PLEASURE OF VIBTTTOITS, A!N T D 



relief of misery ; yet that, most assuredly, not because lie of 
the two is the more intently set on his own gratification, but 
because he of the two is the more intently set on an outward 
accomplishment — the relief of another's wretchedness. The 
truth is, that, just because more compassionate than his 
fellow, the more intent is he than the other on the object of 
this affection, and the less intent is he than the other on 
himself, the subject of this affection. His thoughts and 
feelings are more drawn away to the sufferer, aud therefore 
more drawn away from himself. He is the most occupied 
with the object of this affection ; and, on that very account, 
the least occupied with the pleasure of its indulgence. And 
it is precisely the objective quality of these regards, which 
stamps upon compassion the character of a disinterested 
affection. He surely is the most compassionate whose 
thoughts and feelings are most drawn away to the sufferer, 
and most drawn from self; or, in other words most taken up 
with the direct consideration of him who is the object of this 
affection, and least taken up with the reflex consideration of 
the pleasure that he himself has in the indulgence of it. Yet 
this prevents not the pleasure from being actually felt ; and 
felt, too, in very proportion to the intensity of the compassion; 
or, in other words, more felt the less it has been thought of at 
the time, or the less it has been pursued for its own sake. It 
seems unavoidable in every affection, that the more a thing is 
loved, the greater must be the pleasure of indulging the love of 
it : yet it is equally unavoidable, that the greater in that case 
will be our aim towards the object of the affection, and the less 
will be our aim towards the pleasure which accompanies its 
gratification. And thus, to one who reflects profoundly and 
carefully on these things, it is no paradox that he who has 
had doubly greater enjoyment than another in the exercise 
oi compassion, is doubly the more disinterested of the two ; 



MISERY OF TICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 



S9 



that he lias had the most pleasure in this affection who has 
been the least careful to please himself with the indulgence 
of it ; that he whose virtuous desires, as being the strongest, 
have in their gratification ministered to self the greatest 
satisfaction, has been the least actuated of all his fellows by 
the wishes, and stood at the greatest distance from the aims 
of selfishness.* 

7. And moreover, 'there is a just and philosophical sense, 
in which many of our special affections, besides the virtuous, 
are alike disinterested with these ; even though they have 
been commonly ranked among the selfish affections of our 
nature. The proper object of self-love is the good of self; 
and this calm general regard to our own happiness may be 
considered, in fact, as the only interested affection to which 
our nature is competent. The special affections are, one and 
all of them, distinct from self-love, both in their objects, and 
in the real psychological character of the affections them- 
selves. The object of the avaricious affection is the acquire- 
ment of wealth ; of the resentful, the chastisement of an 
offender; of the sensual, something appropriate or suited to 
that corporeal affection which forms the reigning appetite at 
the time. In many of these, is the good of self the proper 
discriminative object of the affection ; and the mind of him 
who is under their power, and engaged in their prosecution, 
is differently employed from the mind of him, who, at the 
time, is either devising or doing aught for the general or 
abstract end of his own happiness. None of these special 
affections is identical with the affection which has happiness 
for its object. So far from this, the avaricious man often, con- 
scious of the strength of his propensity, and at the moment 

* The purely disinterested character of a right religious affection might 
be proved by these considerations. 



90 



PLEASUKE OE YIBTITOTJS, AND 



of being urged forward by it to new speculations, acknow- 
ledges in his heart, that he would be happier far, could he 
but moderate its violence, and be satisfied with an humbler 
fortune than that to which his aspirations would carry him. 
And the resentful man, in the very act of being tempest* 
driven to some furious onset against the person who has 
affronted or betrayed him, may yet be sensible that, instead 
of seeking for any benefit to himself, he is rushing on the 
destruction of his character, or fortune, or even life. And 
many is the drunkard who, under the goadings of an appe- 
tite which he cannot withstand, in place of self-love being 
the principle, and his own greatest happiness the object, 
knows himself to be on the road to inevitable ruin. There 
is an affection which has happiness for its object ; but this is 
not the affection which rules and has the ascendancy in any 
of these instances. These are all special affections, ground* 
ed on the afiinities which obtain between "certain objects 
and certain parts of human nature, and which cannot be in- 
dulged beyond a given extent, without distemper and dis- 
comfort to the whole nature ; so that, in spite of all the. 
particular gratifications which follow in their train, the man 
over whom they tyrannize may be unhappy upon the whole. 
The very distinction between the affection of self-love and 
the special affections, proves that there is a corresponding 
distinction in their objects ; and this again, that many of 
the latter may be gratified, while the former is disappointed,, 
or, in other words, that, along with many particular enjoy- 
ments, the general state of man may be that of utter and 
extreme wretchedness. It is therefore a competent question^ 
what those special affections are which most consist with the 
general happiness of the mind ; and this, notwithstanding 
that they all possess one circumstance in common — the una- 



MISERY OF YICIOTTS AFFECTIONS. 



91 



voidable pleasure appendant to the gratification of each of 
the in.* 

8. This explanation will help us to understand wherein it 
is that the distinction in point of enjoyment, between a 
good and evil affection of our nature, properly lies. For there 
is a certain species of enjoyment common to them all. It 
were a contradiction in terms to affirm otherwise ; for it were 
tantamount to saying, that an affection may be gratified, 
without the actual experience of a gratification. There must 

* The following' are the clear and judicious observations of Sir James 
Macintosh on this subject : — 

" In contending-, therefore, that the benevolent affections are disinte- 
rested, no more is claimed for them than must be granted to mere animal 
appetites and to malevolent passions. Each of these principles alike seeks 
its own object, for the sake simply of obtaining- it. Pleasure is the result 
of the attainment, but no separate part of the aim of the agent. The de- 
sire that another person may be gratified, seeks that outward object alone, 
according' to the general course of human desire. Resentment is as disin- 
terested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. Hunger or thirst maybe, as 
much as the purest benevolence, at variance with self-love. A regard to our 
own general happiness is not a vice, but in itself an excellent quality. It 
were well if it prevailed more generally over craving- and short-sighted 
appetites. The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of the 
private desires, properly constitute selfishness ; a vice utterly at variance 
with the happiness of him who harbours it, and as such, condemned by 
self-love. There are as few who attain the greatest satisfaction to them- 
selves, as who do the greatest good to others. It is absurd to say with 
some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish, because it is felt by self. 
Understanding* and reasoning are acts of self, for no man can think by 
proxy ; but no man ever called them selfish. Why? Evidently because 
they do not regard self. Precisely the same reason applies to benevolence. 
Such an argument is a gross confusion of self, as it is a subject of feeling 
or thought, with self considered as the object of either. It is no more 
just to refer the private appetites to self-love because they commonly pro- 
mote happiness, than it would be to refer them to self-hatred, in those 
frequent cases where their gratification obstructs it." 



02 



PLEASURE OE YIRTTJOTTS, AND 



be some sensation or other of happiness, at the time when a 
man obtains that which he is seeking for ; and if it be not a 
positive sensation of pleasure, it will at least be the sensation 
of a relief from pain, as when one meets with the opportu- 
nity of wreaking upon its object that indignation which had 
long kept his heart in a tumult of disquietude. "We therefore 
would mistake the matter, if we thought that a state even of 
thorough and unqualified wickedness was exclusive of all en- 
joyment — for even the vicious affections must share in that 
enjoyment, which inseparably attaches to every affection, at 
the moment of its indulgence. And thus it is, that even in 
the veriest Pandemonium might there be lurid gleams of 
ecstasy, and shouts of fiendish exultation — the merriment of 
desperadoes *in crime, who send forth the outcries of their 
spiteful and savage delight, when some deep-laid villany has 
triumphed ; or when, in some dire perpetration of revenge, 
they have given full satisfaction and discharge to the malig- 
nity of their accursed nature. The assertion therefore may 
be taken too generally, when it is stated, that there is no en- 
joyment whatever in the veriest hell of assembled outcasts ; 
for even there, might there be many separate and specific 
gratifications. And we must abstract the pleasure essentiallv 
involved in every affection, at the instant of its indulgence, 
and which cannot possibly be disjoined from it, ere we see 
clearly and distinctively wherein it is that, in respect of en- 
joyment, the virtuous and vicious affections differ from each 
other. For it is true, that there is a common resemblance 
between them ; and that, by the universal law and nature of 
affection, there must be some sort of agreeable sensation, in 
the act of their obtaining that which they are seeking after. 
Yet it is not less true, that, did the former affections bear 
supreme rule in the heart, they would brighten and tranquil- 
lize the whole of human existence — whereas, had the latter 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 



93 



the entire and practical ascendancy, they would distemper the 
whole man, and make him as completely wretched as he 
were completely worthless. 

9. There is one leading difference then between a virtuous 
and a vicious affection — that there is always a felt sweetness 
in the very presence and contact of the former : whereas, in 
the presence and contact of the latter, there is' generally, or 
very often at least, a sensation of bitterness. Let them 
agree as they may in the undoubted fact of a gratification in 
the attainment of their respective ends, the affections them- 
selves may be long in existence and operation before their 
ends are arrived at ; and then it is, we affirm, that if com- 
pared, there will be found a wide distinction and dissimi- 
larity between them. The very feeling of kindness is 
pleasant to the heart ; and the very feeling of anger is a 
painful and corrosive one. The latter, we know, is often 
said to be a mixed feeling — because of both the pleasure and 
the pain which are said to enter into it. But it will be 
found that the pleasure, in this case, lies in the prospect of 
full and final gratification; and very often in a sort of 
current or partial gratification which one may experience 
beforehand, in the mere vent or utterance by words, of the 
labouring violence that is within — seeiug that words of 
bitterness, when discharged on the object of our wrath, are 
sometimes the only, and even the most effective, executioners 
of all the vengeance that we meditate ; besides that, by their 
means, we may enlist in our favour the grateful sympathy of 
other men — thus obtaining a solace to ourselves, and aggra- 
vating the punishment of the offender, by exciting against 
him, in addition to our own hostility, the hostile indignation 
of his fellows. And thus too is it, that, in the case of anger, 
there may not only be a completed gratification at the last, 
by the infliction of a full and satisfactory chastisement ; but 



94 



PLEASURE OF YIRTUOUS, A2Q) 



a gratification, as it were by instalments, with every likely 
purpose of retaliation that we may form in our bosoms, and 
every sentence of keen and reproachful eloquence that may 
fall from our lips. And so anger has been affirmed to be a 
mixed emotion, from confounding the pleasure that lies in 
the gratification of the emotion, with the pleasure that is 
supposed to lie in the feeling of the emotion. But the truth 
is, that, apart from the gratification, the emotion is an 
exceedingly painful one — insomuch that the gratification 
mainly lies in the removal of a pain, or in the being rid of a 
felt uneasiness. Compassion may in the same way be 
termed a mixed feeling. But on close attention to these 
two affections and comparison between them it will be found, 
that all the pleasure of anger lies in its gratification, and all 
the pain of it in the feeling itself — whereas all the pain of com- 
passion lies in. the disappointment of its gratification, while 
in the feeling itself there is nought but pleasure. Let the 
respective gratifications of these two ^affections — the one, 
by the fulfilled retaliation of a wrong; the other, by the ful- 
filled relief of a suffering— let these gratifications be put out 
of notice altogether, that we might but attend to the yet 
ungratified feelings themselves ; and we cannot imagine a 
greater difference of state between two minds, than that of 
one which luxuriates in the tenderness of compassion, and 
that of another which breathes and is infuriated with the 
dark passions and the still darker purposes of resentment. 
Or we may appeal to the experience of the same mind, which 
at one time may have its hour of meditated kindness, and at 
another its hour of meditated revenge. We speak of these 
two, not in the moment of their respective triumphs, not of 
the sensations attendant on the success of each — but of the 
direct and instant sensations which lie in the feelings them- 
selves. They form two as distinct states in the moral world, 



3IISEEY OF TICIOrS AFPECTXOIS'S. 



95 



as sunshine and tempest are in the physical world. We 
have but to name the elements which enter into the compo- 
sition of each, in order to suggest the utter contrariety 
wMch obtains between them — between the calm and placid 
cheerfulness, on the one hand, of that heart which is em- 
ployed in conceiving the generous wishes, or in framing the 
liberal and fruitful devices, of benevolence ; and, on the other 
hand, the turbulence and fierce disorder of the same heart, 
when burning disdain, or fell and implacable hatred, has taken 
possession of it— the reaction of its own affronted pride, or 
aggrieved sense of the injury which has been done to it. 

10. But perhaps the most favourable moment for compa- 
rison between them, is when each is frustrated of its peculiar 
aim ; and so each is sent back upon itself, with that common 
■suffering to which ail the affections are liable — the suffering 
of a disappointment. "We shall be at no loss to determine 
on which side the advantage lies, if we have either felt or 
witnessed benevolence in tears, because of the misery which 
it cannot alleviate ; and rage, in the agonies of its defeated 
impotence, because of the haughty and successful defiance 
of an enemy, whom with vain hostility it has tried to assail, 
but cannot reach. "We have the example of a good affection 
under disappointment, in the case of virtuous grief or vir- 
tuous indignation ; and of a bad affection under disappoint- 
ment, in the case of envy, when in spite of every attempt to 
calumniate or depress its object, he shines forth to universal 
acknowledgment and applause, in all the lustre of his vin- 
dicated superiority. It marks how distinct these two sets of 
feelings are from each other, that with the former, even 
under the pain of disappointment, there is a something in 
the very taste and quality of the feelings themselves, which 
acts as an emollient or a charm, and mitigates the painful- 
lness— while, with the latter, there is nought to mitigate, but 



96 



PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AXD 



everything to exasperate, and more fiercely to agonize. The 
malignant feelings are no sooner turned inwardly, by the 
arrest of a disappointment from without, than they eat in- 
wardly ; and, when foiled in the discharge of their purposed 
violence upon others, they recoil — and, without one soothing 
ingredient to calm the labouring effervescence, they kindle 
a hell in the heart of the unhappy owner. Internally, there 
is a celestial peace and satisfaction in virtue, even though, in 
the midst of its outward discomfiture, it be compelled to weep 
over the unredressed wrongs and sufferings of humanity. 
On the other hand, the very glance of disappointed malevo- 
lence bespeaks of this evil affection, that of itself it is a fierce 
and fretting distemper of the soul, an executioner of ven- 
geance for all the guilty passions it may have fanned into 
mischievous activity, and for all the crimes it may have 
instigated. 

11. And this contrast between a good and an evil affec- 
tion, this superiority of the former to the latter, is fully sus- 
tained, when, instead of looking to the state of mind which 
is left by the disappointment of each, we look to the state of 
mind which is left by their respective gratifications— the one 
a state of sated compassion, the other of sated resentment. 
There is one most observable distinction between the states 
of feeling, by which an act of compassion on the one hand, 
and of resentment on the other, are succeeded. It is seldom 
that man feasts his eyes on that spectacle of prostrate suf- 
fering which, in a moment of fury, he hath laid at his feet, 
in the same way that he feasts his eyes on that picture of 
family comfort which smiles upon him from some cottage 
home, that his generosity had reared. This looks as if the 
sweets of benevolence were lasting, whereas the sweets of 
revengeful malice, such as they are, are in general but mo- 
mentary. An act of compassion may extinguish for a time 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 



97 



the feeling of compassion, by doing away that suffering which 
is the object of it ; but then it generally is followed up by a 
feeling of permanent regard. An act of revenge, when 
executed to the full extent of the desire of purpose, does 
extinguish and put an end to the passion of revenge ; and is 
seldom, if ever, followed up by a feeling of permanent 
hatred. An act of kindness but attaches the more, and 
augments a friendly disposition towards its object. It has 
been said that we hate the man whom we have injured: but 
whatever the truth of this observation may be, certain it is, 
that we do not so hate the man of whom we have taken fall 
satisfaction for having injured us ; or, if we could imagine 
aught so monstrous, and happily so rare, as the prolonged, 
the yet unquelled satisfaction of one who could be regaled 
for hours with the sighs of him whom his own hands had 
wounded, or for months and years, with the pining destitu- 
tion of the household whom himself had impoverished and 
brought low — this Avere because the measure of the revenge 
had not equalled the measure of the felt provocation, only 
perhaps to be appeased and satiated by death. This at 
length would terminate the emotion. And here a new in- 
sight opens upon us into the distinction between a good and 
a bad affection. Benevolence* itself of immortal quality, 
would immortalize its ob jects : malignity, if not appeased by 
an infliction short of death, would destroy them.* The one 
is ever strengthening itself upon old subjects, and fastening 
upon new ones ; the other is ever extinguishing its resent- 
ment towards old objects by the pettier acts of chastisement, 
or, if nothing short of a capital punishment will appease it, 
by dying with their death. The exterminating blow, the 
death which "clears all scores" — this forms the natural and 

* So true it is, that he who hateth his brother with implacable hatred 
is a murderer. 

H 



98 



PLEASURE OE YIRTUOUS, AKD 



necessary limit even to the fiercest revenge ; whereas, the 
outgoings of benevolence are quite indefinite. In revenge* 
the affection is successively extinguished ; and if relumed, it 
is upon new subjects. In benevolence, the affection is kept 
up for old objects, while ever open to excitement from new 
ones ; and hence a living and a multiplying power of enjoy- 
ment, which is peculiarly its own. On the same principle 
that we water a shrub just because we had planted it, does 
our friendship grow and ripen the more towards him on 
whom we had formerly exercised it. The affection of kind- 
ness for each individual object survives the act of kindness, 
or rather is strengthened by the act. Whatever sweetness 
may have been originally in it, is enhanced by the exercise ;. 
and, so far from being stifled by the first gratification, it 
remains in greater freshness than ever for higher and larger 
gratifications than before. It is the perennial quality of 
their gratification, which stamps that superiority on the good 
affections we are now contending for. Benevolence both 
perpetuates itself upon its old objects, and expands itself into 
a wider circle as it meets with new ones. Not so with re- 
venge, w^hich generally disposes of the old object by one 
gratification ; and then must transfer itself to a new object, 
ere it can meet with another gratification. Let us grant 
that each affection has its peculiar walk of enjoyment. The 
history of the one walk presents us with a series of accumu- 
lations ; the history of the other with a series of extinctions. 

12. But in dwelling on this beautiful peculiarity, by which 
a good affection is distinguished from a bad one, we are in 
danger of weakening our immediate argument. We bring 
forward the matter a great deal too favourably for the malig- 
nant desires of the human heart, if, while reasoning on the- 
supposition of an enjoyment, however transitory in their 
gratification, w T e give any room for the imagination that even 



MISE3T OP VICIOUS AJETECIIOXS. 99 

this is unmixed enjoyment. "VTe have already stated, that, 
of themselves, and anterior to their gratification, there is a 
painfnlness in these desires ; and that, when by their gratifi- 
cation we get quit of this painfullness, we might after all 
obtain little more than a relief from misery. But the truth 
is, that, generally speakingf we obtain a great deal less on 
the side of happiness than this : for, in most cases, all that 
we obtain by the gratification of a malignant passion, is but 
the exchange of one misery for another ; and this apart still 
from the remorse of an evil perpetration. There is one 
familiar instance of it which often occurs in conversation — 
when, piqued by something offensive in the remark or 
manner of our fellow, we react with a severity which humbles 
and overwhelms him. In this case, the pain of the resent- 
ment is succeeded by the pain we feel in the spectacle of 
that distress which ourselves have created ; and this, too, 
aggravated perhaps by the reprobation of all the bystanders 
— affording thereby a miniature example of the painful 
alternations which are constantly taking place in the history 
of moral evil ; when the misery of wrong affections is but 
replaced to the perpetrator himself, by the misery of the wrong 
actions to which they have hurried him. It is thus that a 
life of frequent gratification may, notwithstanding, be a life of 
intense wretchedness. It may help our imagination of such 
a state, to conceive of one, subject every hour to the agonies 
of hunger, with such a malconformation at the same time in 
his organ of taste, that in food of every description he felt a 
bitter and universal nausea. There were here a constant 
gratification, yet a constant and severe endurance — a mere 
alternation of cruel sufferings — the displacement of one set 
of agonies, by the substitution of other agonies in their room. 
This is seldom, perhaps never realized in the physical world ; 
but in the moral world it is a great and general phenomenon. 



100 



PLEASUKE OF YIETUOUS, A1S T D 



The example shews at least the possibility of a constitution, 
under which a series of incessant gratifications may be 
nothing better than a restless succession of distress and dis- 
quietude ; and that such should be the constitution of our 
moral nature as to make a life of vice a life of vanity and cruel 
vexation, is strong experimental^ evidence of Him who or- 
dained this constitution, that He hateth iniquity, that He 
loveth righteousness. 

13. But the peculiarity which we have been incidentally led 
to notice, is in itself pregnant with inference also. We 
should augur hopefully of the final issues of our moral con- 
stitution, as well as conclude favourably of Him who hath 
ordained it — when we find its workings to be such, that, on 
the one hand, the feeling of kindness towards an individual 
object, not only survives, but is indefinitely strengthened by 
the acts of kindness ; and, on the other hand, that not only 
does an act of revenge, satiate and put an end to the feeling 
of revenge, but even, that certain acts of hostility towards the 
individual object of our hatred will make us relent from this 
hatred, and at length extinguish it altogether. May we not 
perceive in this economy a balance in point of tendency, 
and at length of ultimate effect, on the side of virtue ? May 
it not warrant the expectation that, while benevolence, that 
great conservative principle of being, has in it a principle con- 
servative of itself as well as of its objects, the outbreakings of 
evil are but partial and temporary ; and that the moral world, 
viewed as a progressive system, and now only in its transition 
state, has been so constructed as to secure both the perpetuity 
of all the good affections, and the indefinite expansion of them 
to new objects, and over a larger and ever- widening territory ? 
At all events, whatever reason there may be to fear, that, in 
the future arrangements of nature and providence, both 
virtue and vice will be capable of immortality — we might 



MISERY OP YICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 



101 



gather from what passes under our eyes, in this rudimental 
and incipient stage of human existence, that, even with our 
present constitution, virtue alone is capable of a blissful 
immortality. For malice and falsehood carry in them the 
seeds of their own wretchedness, if not of their own destruc- 
tion. Only grant the soul to be imperishable ; and if the 
character of the governor is to be gathered from the final 
issues of the government over which he presides — it says 
much for the moral character of Him who framed us, that, 
unless there be an utter reversal of the nature which himself 
has given, then in respect to the power of conferring enjoy- 
ment or of maintaining the soul in its healthiest and hap- 
piest mood, it is righteousness alone which endure th for 
ever, and charity alone which never faileth. 

14. And beside taking account of the special enjoyments 
which attach to the special virtues, we might observe on the 
general state of that mind, which, under the consistent and 
comprehensive principle of being or doing what it ought, 
studies rightly to acquit itself of all the moral obligations. 
Beside the perpetual feast of an approving conscience, and 
the constant recurrence of those particular gratifications 
which attach to the indulgence of every good affection, — is 
it not quite obvious of every mind which places itself under 
a supreme regimen of morality, that then it is in its best 
possible condition with regard to enjoyment ; like a well- 
strung-instrument, in right and proper tone, because all its 
parts are put in right adjustment with each other ? If con- 
science be indeed the superior faculty of our nature, then, 
every time it is cast down from this pre-eminence, there 
must be a sensation of painful dissonance ; and the whole 
man feels out of sorts, as one unhinged or denaturalized. 
This perhaps is the main reason that a state of well-doing 
stands associated with a state of well-being : and why the 



102 



PLEASUKE. OE VIRTUOUS, 



special virtue of temperance is not more closely associated 
with the health of the body, than the general habit of virtue 
is with a wholesome and well conditioned state of the soul. 
There is then no derangement as it were in the system of 
our nature — all the powers, whether superior or subordinate, 
being in their right places, and all moving without discord 
and without dislocation. It were anticipating our argument, 
did we refer at present to the confidence and regard where- 
with a virtuous man is surrounded in the world. We have 
not yet spoken of the adaptations to man's moral constitution 
from without, but only of the inward pleasures and satis- 
factions which are yielded in the workings of the constitution 
itself. And surely when we find it to have been so con- 
structed and attuned by its Maker, that in all the movements 
of virtue there is a felt and grateful harmony, while a certain 
jarring sense of violence and discomposure ever attends upon 
the opposite — we cannot imagine how the moral character 
of that Being who Himself devised this constitution, and 
established all its tendencies, can be more clearly or con- 
vincingly read than in phenomena like these. 

15. We have already said that the distinction so well 
established by Butler, between the object of our affection 
and its accompanying, nay, inseparable pleasure, was the 
most effectual argument that could be brought to bear 
against the selfish system of morals. The virtuous affection 
that is in a man's breast simply leads him to do what he 
ought ; and in that object he rests and terminates. Like 
every other affection, there must be a pleasure conjoined with 
the prosecution of it ; and at last a fall and final gratification 
in the attainment of its object. But the object must be dis- 
tinct from the pleasure, which itself is founded on a prior suita- 
bleness between the mind and its object. When a man is 
actuated by a virtuous desire, it is the virtue itself that he is 



AIISEBY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 



103 



seeking, and not the gratification that is in it. His single 
object is to be or to do rightly— though, the more intent he 
is upon this object, the greater will, the greater must be his 
satisfaction if he succeed in it. Nevertheless, it is not the 
satisfaction which he is seeking ; it is the object which yields 
the satisfaction — the object too for its own sako, and not for 
the sake of its accompanying or its resulting enjoyment. 
Nay, the more strongly, and therefore the more exclusively 
set upon virtue for its own sake ; the less will he think of 
its enjoyment, and yet the greater will his actual enjoyment 
be. In other words, virtue, the more disinterested it is, is 
the more prolific of happiness to him who follows it ; and 
then it is, that, when freest of all from the taints of merce- 
nary selfishness, it yields to its votary the most perfect and 
supreme enjoyment. Such is the constitution of our nature, 
that virtue loses not its disinterested character, and yet man 
loses not his reward ; and the author of this constitution, 
He who hath ordained all its laws and consequences, has 
given signal proof of His own supreme regard for virtue, and 
therefore of the supreme virtue of His own character, in that 
He hath so framed the creatures of his will, as that their 
perfect good, and perfect happiness are at one. Yet the 
union of these does not constitute their unity. The union is 
a contingent appointment of the Deity ; and so is at once 
the evidence and the effect of the goodness that is in His 
own nature. 

16. This then is our second general argument for the 
moral character of God, grounded on the moral constitution 
of man ; and prior, as yet, to any view of its adaptation to 
external nature. It is distinct from the first argument, as 
grounded on the phenomena of conscience, w T hich assumes 
the office of a judge within the breast, all whose decisions 
are on the side of benevolence and justice ; and which is 



104 



POWER AND OPERATION OP HAPIT. 



ever armed with a certain power of enforcement, both in 
the pains of remorse and the pleasures of self- approbation. 
These, however, are distinct, and ought to be distinguished 
from the direct pleasures of virtue in itself, and the direct 
pains of vice in itself, which form truly separate ingredients 
— on the one hand, of a present and often very painful cor- 
rection, on the other hand, of a present and very precious 
reward. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THIRD GENERAL ARGUMENT. 

The Power and Operation of Habit, 

1. "We have as yet been occupied with what may be 
termed the instant sensations, wherewith morality is beset 
in the mind of man — with the voice of conscience which 
goes immediately before, or with the sentence whether of 
approval or condemnation, which comes immediately after it; 
and, latterly, with those states of feeling which are experi- 
enced at the moment when under the power of those affec- 
tions, to which any moral designation, be it of virtue or vice, 
is applicable— the pleasure which there is in the very presence 
and contact of the one, the distaste, the bitterness which 
there is in the presence and contact of the other. 

2. These phenomena of juxtaposition, as they may be 
termed; these contiguous antecedents and consequents of 
the moral and the immoral in man, speak strongly the pur- 
pose of Him who ordained our mental constitution, in having 
inserted there such a constant power of command and en- 
couragement on the side of the former, and a like constant 



POWER A^D OPERATION OF HABIT. 



105 



operation of checks and discouragements against the latter. 
But. perhaps, something more may be collected of the design 
and character of Grod, by stretching forward our observation 
prospectively in the history of man, and so extending our 
regards to the more distant consequences of virtue or vice, 
both on the frame of his character and the state of his enjoy- 
ments. By studying these posterior results, we approximate 
our views towards the final issues of that administration 
under which we are placed. That defensive apparatus 
wherewith the embryo seed of plants is guarded and pro- 
tected, might indicate a special care or design in the pre- 
server of it. What that design particularly is comes to be 
clearly and certainly known, when, in the future history of 
the plant, we learn what the functions of the seed are, after 
it has come to maturity ; and then observe, that, had it been 
suffered universally to perish, it would have led, not to the 
mortality of the individual, for that is already an inevitable 
law, but to the extinction and mortality of the species. 

3. For tracing forward man's moral history, or the changes 
which take place in his moral state, it is necessary that we 
should advert to the influence of habit. Yet it is not pro- 
perly the philosophy of habit wherewith our argument is 
concerned, but with the leading facts of its practical opera- 
tion. A beneficial effect might still remain an evidence of 
the Divine goodness, by whatever steps it should be effi- 
ciently or physically brought about,— its power in this way 
depending not on the question how it is, but on the fact that 
so it is. It were really, therefore, deviating from our own 
strict and pertinent line of inquiry, did we stop to discuss 
the philosophic theory of habit, or suspend our own inde- 
pendent reasoning till that theory was settled —beside most 
unwisely and unnecessarily attaching to our theme all the 
discredit of an obscure or questionable speculation. It is 



106 



POWER AND OPERATION OP HABIT. 



with palpable and sure results both in the material and 
mental world, more than with the recondite processes in 
either, that theism has chiefly to do ; and it is by the former 
more than by the latter that the cause of theism is upholden. 

4. We might only observe, in passing, that the modi- 
fication introduced by Dr. Thomas Brown into the 
theory of habit, was perhaps uncalled for, even for the 
accomplishment of his own purpose, which was to demon- 
strate that it required no peculiar or original law of the 
human constitution to account for its phenomena. He 
resolves, and we are disposed to think rightly, the whole 
operation of habit into the law of suggestion— only, he would 
extend that law to states of feelings, as well as to thoughts, 
or states of thought. # "We are all aware that if two objects 
have been seen or thought of together on any former occa- 
sion, then the thought of one of them is apt to suggest the 
thought of the other, and the more apt the more frequently 
that the suggestion has taken place — insomuch that, if the 
suggestion have taken place very often, we shall find it 
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to break the succession 
between the thought which suggests and the thought which 

* The following is the passage taken from his forty-third lecture, in which 
Dr. Brown seems to connect feeling- with feeling by the same mental law 
which connects thought with thought. " To explain the influence of habit 
in increasing the tendency to certain actions, I must remark, what I have 
already more than once repeated, that the suggesting influence which is 
usually expressed in the phrase, association of ideas —though that very 
improper phrase would seem to limit it to our ideas or conceptions only, 
and has unquestionably produced a mistaken belief of this partial operation, 
of a general influence— is not limited to those more than to any other 
states of mind, but occurs also with equal force in other feelings, which are 
not commonly termed ideas or conceptions ; that our desires or other emo- 
tions, for example, may, like them, form a part of our trains of suggestion," 
&c. See another equally ambiguous passage in his sixty -fourth lecture. 



POWER OPERATION OF HABIT. 



107 



is suggested by it. Now, Dr. Brown has conceived it ne- 
cessary to extend this principle to feelings as well as 
thoughts— insomuch, that if on a former occasion a certain 
object have been followed up by a certain feeling, or even if 
one feeling have been followed up by another, then the 
thought of the object introduces the feeling, .or the one 
feeling introduces the other feeling into the mind, on the 
same principle that thought introduces thought. Now, we 
should rather be inclined to hold that thought introduces 
feeling, not in consequence of the same law of suggestion 
whereby thought introduces thought, but in virtue of the 
direct power which lies in the object of the thought to excite 
that feeling. "When a voluptuous object awakens a volup- 
tuous feeling, this is not by suggestion, but by a direct 
influence of its own. "When the picture of that voluptuous 
object awakens the same voluptuous feeling, we would not 
ascribe it to suggestion, but, still put it down to the power 
of the object, whether presented or only represented, to 
awaken certain emotions. And as little would we ascribe 
the excitement of the feeling to suggestion, but still to the 
direct and original power of the object, though it were pic- 
tured to us only in thought, instead of being pictured to us 
in visible imagery. In like manner, when the thought of an 
injury awakens in us anger, even as the injury itself did at 
the moment of its infliction, we should not ascribe this to 
that peculiar law which is termed the law of suggestion, and 
which undoubtedly connects thought with thought. But 
we should ascribe it wholly to that law which connects an 
object with its appropriate emotion — whether that object be 
present to the senses, or have only been recalled by the 
memory, and is present to the thoughts. "We sustain an 
injury, and we feel resentment in consequence, without 
surely the law of suggestion having had aught to do with 



108 



POWER AND OPERATION OE HABIT. 



the sequence. "We see the aggressor afterwards, and our 
anger is revived against him ; and with this particular suc- 
cession the law of suggestion has certainly had to do, — not, 
however, in the way of thought suggesting feeling, but only 
in the way of thought suggesting thought. In truth, it is a 
succession of three terms. The sight of the man awakens 
a recollection of the injury ; and the thought of the injury 
awakens the emotion. The first sequence, or that which 
obtains between the first and second term, is a pure instance 
of the suggestion of thought by thought, or to speak in the 
old language, of the association of ideas. The second se- 
quence, or that which obtains between the middle and last 
term, is still, Dr. Brown Vould say, not an instance of sugges- 
tion, but of thought suggesting the feeling wherewith it was 
formerly accompanied. Whereas, in our apprehension, it is 
due, not to the law of suggestion, but to the law which 
connects an object, whether present at the time or thought 
upon afterwards, with its counterpart emotion. Still the 
result is the same, however differently accounted for. One 
can think, surely, of the resentment which now occupies 
him, as well as he can think of a past resentment ; indeed, 
it is difficult to imagine how he can feel a resentment with- 
out thinking of it. Let some one thought, then, by the 
proper law of suggestion, have introduced the thought of an 
injury that had been done to us ; this second thought intro- 
duces the feeling of resentment, not by the law of sugges- 
tion, but by the law which relates an object, whether present 
or thought upon, to its appropriate emotion ; this emotion 
is thought upon, and, not the emotion, but the thought of 
the emotion, recalls the thought of the first emotion that 
was felt at the original infliction of the injury ; and this 
thought again recalls to us the thought of the injury itself, 
and perhaps the thought of other or similar injuries, which, 



POWEK XSD OPERATION OP HABIT. 



109 



as at the first, excites anew the feeling of anger, but, at this 
particular step, by means of a law different from that of 
suggestion, even the law of our emotions, in virtue of which, 
certain objects, when present in any way to the cognizance 
of the understanding, awaken certain sensibilities in the 
heart. It is thus that thoughts and feelings might recipro- 
cally introduce each other, not by means of but one law of 
suggestion extending in common to them both, but by the 
intermingling of two laws in this repeating or circulating 
process, — even the law of suggestion, acting only upon the 
thoughts ; and the law of emotion, by which certain objects, 
when presented to the senses or to the memory, have the 
power to awaken certain correspondent emotions. "We in 
this way get quit of the mysticism which attaches to the 
notion of mere feelings either suggesting or being suggested 
by other feelings, separately from thoughts — more especially 
when, by the association of thoughts or of ideas alone, and 
the direct power which lies in the objects of these ideas to 
awaken certain emotions, all the phenomena [_a$ far as they 
depend on suggestion] are capable of being explained. A 
certain thought or object may suggest the thought of a 
former provocation ; this thought might excite a feeling of 
resentment ; the resentment, thus felt or thought upon, 
might send back the mi ad to a still more vivid impression of 
its original cause ; and this again might prolong or waken 
the resentment anew, and in greater freshness than before. 
The ultimate effect might be a fierce and fiery effervescence 
of irascible feeling. Yet not by the operation of one law, 
but of two distinct laws in the human constitution ; the first 
that, in virtue of which, thoughts suggest thoughts ; the 
second that, in virtue of which, the object thus thought 
upon awakens the emotion that is suited to it. 

[5. But while we have rentured to offer this correction on 



110 



POWEE, AND OPERATION OE HABIT. 



the language of Dr. Brown, we are far from being satisfied 
that the law of suggestion alone will, account for the ever- 
growing inveteracy of habit. It supplies, we think, a strong 
auxiliary force ; but is not the only force concerned in the 
operation. It accounts for the increased importunity of the 
solicitations from without ; but, over and above this, we 
apprehend that the progress of repeated indulgence induces 
a subjective change upon the mind — in virtue of which, there 
is an increasing susceptibility, or rather a greater strength, 
if it may be so called, of inertia or passiveness within — so 
that the propensities become every day more headlong, and 
that too with a less power of resistance than before.] 

6. But though for once we have thus adverted to the 
strict philosophy of the subject, it will be apparent, that, in 
this instance, it is of no practical necessity for the purposes 
of our argument ; and it is truly the same in many other 
instances, where, if instead of reasoning theologically on the? 
palpable operations of the mechanism, we should reason 
scientifically on the modus operandi, we would run into really 
irrelevant discussions. The theme of our present chapter, is* 
the effects of Habit, in as far as these effects serve to indi- 
cate the design or character of Him who is the author of 
our mental constitution. It matters not to any conclusion 
of ours, by what recondite, or, it may be, yet undiscovered 
process these effects are brought about ; and whether the 
common theory, or that of Dr. Brown, or that again as 
modified and corrected by ourselves, is the just one. It m 
enough to know, that, if any given process of intermingled 
thought and feeling have been described by us once, there 
are laws at work, which, on the first step of that process 
again recurring, would incline us to describe the whole of 
the process over again ; and with the greater power and 
certainty, the more frequently that process has been re- 



POWER AXD OPERATION OP HAP IT. 



Ill 



peated. "We are perfectly sure that the more frequently 
any particular sequence between thought and thought may 
have occurred, the more readily will it recur ; — so that when 
once the first thought has entered the mind, we may all the 
more confidently reckon on its being followed up by the 
second. This [so far at least as suggestion is concerned] 
we hold enough for explaining the ever recurring force and 
facility, wherewith feelings also will arise and be followed 
up by their indulgence — and that, just in proportion to the 
frequency wherewith in given circumstances they have been 
awakened and indulged formerly. In as far as the objects 
of gratification are the exciting causes which stimulate and 
awaken the desires of gratification ; then, any process which 
ensures the presence and application of the causes, will also 
ensure the fulfilment of the effects which result from them. 
If it be the presence or perception of the wine that stands 
before us which stirs up the appetite ; and if, instead of 
acting on the precept of looking not unto the wine when it 
is red, we continue to look till the appetite be so inflamed 
that the indulgence become inevitable — then, as we looked 
at it continuously when present, will we, by the law of sug- 
gestion, be apt to think of it continuously when absent. If 
the one continuity was not broken by any considerations of 
principle or prudence — so the less readily will the other 
continuity be broken in like manner. When we revisit the 
next social company, we shall probably resign ourselves to 
the very order of sensations that we did formerly ; and the 
more surely, the oftener that that order has already been 
described by ns. And as the order of objects with their 
sensations when present, so is the order of thoughts with 
their desires when absent. This order forces itself upon 
the mind with a strength proportional to the frequency of 
its repetition ; and desires, when not evaded by the mind 



112 



POWER AND OPERATION OE HABIT. 



shifting its attention away from the objects of them, can 
only be appeased by their indulgence. 

7. It is thus that he who enters on a career of vice, enters 
on a career of headlong degeneracy. If even for once we 
have described that process of thought and feeling, which 
leads, whether through the imagination or the senses, from 
the first presentation of a tempting object to a guilty indul- 
gence — this of itself establishes a probability, that, on the 
recurrence of that object, we shall pass onward by the same 
steps to the same consummation. And it is a probability 
ever strengthening with every repetition of the process, till at 
length it advances towards the moral certainty of a helpless 
surrender to the tyranny of those evil passions, which we 
cannot resist, just because the will itself is in thraldom, and 
we choose not to resist them. It is thus that we might trace 
the progress of intemperance and licentiousness, and even of 
dishonesty, to whose respective solicitations we have yielded 
at the first— till, by continuing to yield, we become the 
passive, the prostrate subjects of a force that is uncontrolla- 
ble, only because we have seldom or never in good earnest 
tried to control it. It is not that we are struck of a sudden 
with moral impotency ; but we are gradually benumbed into 
it. The power of temptation has not made instant seizure 
upon the faculties, or taken them by storm. It proceeds by 
an influence that is gently and almost insensibly progressive 
— just as progressive, in truth, as the association between 
particular ideas is strengthened by the frequency of their 
succession. But even as that association may at length 
become inveterate — insomuch that when the first idea finds 
entry into the mind, w r e cannot withstand the importunity 
wherewith the second insists upon following it — so might the 
moral habit become alike inveterate ; thoughts succeeding 
thoughts, and urging onward their counterpart desires in 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 



113 



that wonted order, which had hitherto connected the begin- 
ning of a temptation with its full and final victory. At each 
repetition would we find it more difficult te break this order, 
or to lay an arrest upon it — till at length, as the fruit of this 
wretched regimen, its unhappy patient is lorded over by a 
power of moral evil, which possesses the whole man, and wields 
an irresistible or rather an unresisted ascendancy over him. 

8. But this melancholy process, leading to a vicious indul- 
gence, may be counteracted by an opposite process of 
resistance, though with far greater facility at the first — yet 
a facility ever augmenting, in proportion as the effectual 
resistance of temptation is persevered in. That balancing 
moment, at which pleasure would allure, and conscience is 
urging us to refrain, may be regarded as the point of depar- 
ture or divergency, whence one or other of the two processes 
will take their commencement. Each of them consists in a 
particular succession of ideas with their attendant feelings ; 
and whichever of them may happen to be described once, has, 
by the law of suggestion, the greater chance, in the same 
circumstances, of being described over again. Should the 
mind dwell on an object of allurement, and the considera- 
tions of principle not be entertained — it will pass onward 
from the first incitement to the final and guilty indulgence 
by a series of stepping-stones, each of which will present 
itself more readily in future ; and with less chance of arrest 
or interruption by the suggestions of conscience than before. 
But should these suggestions be admitted, and far more 
should they prevail — then on the principle of association, 
will they be all the more apt to intervene on the repetition 
of the same circumstances; and again break that line of con- 
tinuity, which, but for this intervention, would have led from a 
temptation to a turpitude or a crime. If on the occurrence 
of a temptation formerly, conscience did interpose and re- 

i 



POWEIl AND OPERATION OE HABIT. 



present the evil of a compliance, and so impress the man 
■with a sense of obligation, as led him to dismiss the fasci- 
nating object from the presence of his mind, or to hurry away 
from it— the likelihood is, that the recurrence of a similar 
temptation will suggest the same train of thoughts and feel- 
ings, and lead to the same beneficial result ; and this is a 
likelihood ever increasing with every repetition of the process. 
The train which would have terminated in a vicious indul- 
gence, is dispossessed by the train which conducts to a reso- 
lution and an act of virtuous self-denial. The thoughts which 
tend to awaken emotions and purposes on the side of duty 
find readier entrance into the mind ; and the thoughts which 
awaken and urge forward the desire of what is evil more rea- 
dily give way. The positive force on the side of virtue is 
augmented by every repetition of the train which leads to a 
virtuous determination. The resistance to this force on the 
side of vice is weakened, in proportion to the frequency where- 
with that train of suggestions, which would have led to a 
vicious indulgence, is broken and discomfited. It is thus 
that when one is successfully resolute in his opposition to 
evil, the power of making the achievement, and the facility 
of the achievement itself are both upon the increase ; and 
virtue makes double gain to herself by every separate con- 
quest which she may have won. The humbler attainments 
of moral worth are first mastered and secured; and the 
aspiring disciple may pass onward in a career that is quite 
indefinite to nobler deeds and nobler sacrifices. 

9. And this law of habit, when enlisted on the side of 
righteousness, not only strengthens and makes sure our 
resistance to vice, but facilitates the most arduous perform- 
ances of virtue. The man whose thoughts, with the purposes 
an d doings to which they lead, are at the bidding of conscience, 
will, by frequent repetition at length describe the same track 



POWER AXD OPERATION OF HABIT. 



115 



almost spontaneously — even as in physical education, things 
laboriously learned at the first come to be done at last with- 
out the feeling of an effort. And so, in moral education, 
every new achievement of principle smooths the way to 
future achievements of the same kind ; and the precious 
fruit or purchase of each moral victory is to set* us on higher 
and firmer vantage ground for the conquests of principle in 
all time coming. He who resolutely bids away the sugges- 
tions of avarice, when they come into conflict with the in- 
cumbent generosity ; or the suggestions of voluptuousness, 
when they come into conflict with the incumbent self-denial ; 
or the suggestions of anger, when they come into conflict 
with the incumbent act of magnanimity and forbearance— 
will at length obtain, not a respite only, but a final deliver- 
ance from their intrusion. Conscience, the longer it has 
made way over the obstacles of selfishness and passion — the 
less will it give way to these adverse forces, themselves 
weakened by the repeated defeats which they have sustained 
in the warfare of moral discipline : Or, in other words, the 
oftener that conscience makes good the supremacy which 
she claims — the greater would be the work of violence, and 
less the strength for its accomplishment, to cast her down 
from that station of practical guidance and command which 
of right belongs to her. It is in great part because, in virtue 
of the law of suggestion, those trains of thought and feeling, 
which connect her first biddings with their final execution, 
are the less exposed at every new instance to be disturbed, 
and the more likely to be repeated over again, that every 
good principle is more strengthened by its exercise, and 
every good affection is more strengthened by its indulgence 
than before. The acts of virtue ripen into habits ; and the 
goodly and permanent result is, the formation or establish- 
ment of a virtuous character. 



116 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 



10. This then forms a distinct argument in the mental 
constitution for the virtuous character of Him who ordained 
it. The voice of authority within, bidding us to virtue, and 
the immediate delights attendant on obedience, certainly, 
speak strongly for the moral character of that administration 
under which we are placed. But, by looking to posterior 
and permanent results, we have the advantage of viewing 
the system of that administration in progress. Instead of 
the insulated acts, we are led to regard the abiding and the 
accumulating consequences ; and by stretching forward our 
observation through larger intervals, and to more distant 
points in the moral history of men — we are in likelier cir- 
cumstances for obtaining a glimpse of their final destination ; 
and so of seizing on this mightier and mysterious secret — 
the reigning policy of the divine government, whence we 
might collect the character of Him who hath ordained it. 
And surely, it is of prime importance to be noted in this 
examination, that by every act of virtue we become more 
powerful for its service : and by every act of vice we become 
more helplessly its slaves. Or, in other words, were these 
respective moral regimens fully developed into their respec- 
tive consummations, it would seem as if, by the one, we 
should be conducted to that state where the faculty within, 
which is felt to be the rightful, would also become the 
reigning sovereign, and then we should have the full enjoy- 
ment of all the harmony and happiness attendant upon 
virtue — whereas, by the other, those passions of our nature 
felt to be inferior, would obtain the lawless ascendancy 
and subject their wretched bondsmen to the turbulence, and 
the agony, and the sense of degradation, which, by the very 
constitution of our being, are inseparable from the reign of 
moral evil. 

11. We might not fully comprehend the design or meaning 



POWER AND PEE ATI ON OE HABIT. 117 



of a process, till we have seen the end of* it. Had there 
been no death, the mystery of our present state might have 
been somewhat alleviated. We might then have seen, in 
bolder relief and indelible character, the respective consum- 
mations of vice and virtue— perhaps the world partitioned 
into distinct moral territories, where the habit of many 
centuries had given fixture and establishment, first, to a 
society of the upright, now in the firm possession of all 
goodness, as the well-earned result of that wholesome disci- 
pline through which they had passed ; and, second, to a 
society of the reprobate, now hardened in all iniquity, and 
abandoned to the violence of evil passions no longer to be 
controlled and never to be eradicated. We might then have 
witnessed the peace, the contentment, the universal confi- 
dence and love, the melody of soul, that reigned in the 
dwellings of the righteous ; and contrasted these with the 
disquietudes, the strifes, the fell and fierce collisions of in- 
justice and mutual disdain and hate implacable, the frantic 
bacchanalian excesses with their dreary intervals of remorse 
and lassitude, which kept the other region in perpetual 
anarchy, and which, constituted as we are, must trouble or 
dry up all the well-springs of enjoyment, whether in the 
hearts of individuals, or in the bosom of families. "We could 
have been at no loss to have divined, from the history and 
state of such a world, the policy of its ruler. We should 
have recognised in that peculiar economy, by which every 
act, whether of virtue or vice, made its performer still more 
virtuous or more vicious than before, a moral remuneration 
on the one hand, and a moral penalty on the other —with an 
enhancement of all the consequences, whether good or evil, 
which flowed from each of them. We could not have mis- 
taken the purposes and mind of the Deity —when we saw 
thus palpably, and through the demonstrations of experience, 



118 



POWER AND OPERATION OP HABIT. 



the ultimate effects of these respective processes ; and in this 
total diversity of character, with a like total diversity of con- 
dition, were made to perceive, that righteousness was its own 
eternal reward, and that wickedness was followed up, and 
that for ever, with the bitter fruit of its own ways. 

12. Death so far intercepts the view of this result, that it 
is not here the object of sight or of experience. Still, how- 
ever, it remains the object of our likely anticipation. The 
truth is, that the processwhich we are now contemplating, 
the process by which character is formed and strengthened 
and perpetuated, suggests one of the strongest arguments 
within compass of the light of nature, for the immortality of 
the sold. In the system of the world we behold so many 
adaptations, not only between the faculties of sentient beings,, 
and their counterpart objects in external nature, but between 
every historical progression in nature, and a fulfilment of 
corresponding interest or magnitude which it ultimately 
lands in—that we cannot believe of man's moral history, m 
if it terminated in death. More especially when we think of 
the virtuous character, how laboriously it is reared, and how 
slowly it advances to perfection ; but, at length, how indefi- 
nite its capabilities of power and of enjoyment are, after this 
education of habits has been completed — it seems like the 
breach of a great and general analogy, if man is to be sud- 
denly arrested on his way to the magnificent result, for 
which it might well be deemed that the whole of his life was 
but a preparation ; having just reached the full capacity of 
an enjoyment, of which he had only been permitted, in this 
evanescent scene, a few brief and passing foretastes. It 
were like the infliction of a violence on the continuity of 
things, of which we behold no similar example, if a being so 
gifted were thus left to perish in the full maturity of his 
powers and moral acquisitions. The very eminence that he 



POWER AND OPERATION OP HABIT. 



119 



has won, we naturally look upon as the guarantee and the 
precursor of some great enlargement beyond it — warranting 
the hope, therefore, that Death but transforms without de- 
stroying him, or, that the present is only an embryo or ru- 
dimental state, the final development of which is in another 
and future state of existence. 

13. This is not the right place for a full exposition of 
this argument. "We might only observe, that there is an 
evidence of man's immortality, in the moral state and history 
of the bad upon earth, as well as of the good. The truth is, 
that nature's most vivid anticipations of a conscious futurity 
on the other side of death, are the forebodings of guilty fear, 
not the bright anticipations of confident and rejoicing hope. 
We speak not merely of the unredressed wrongs inflicted by 
the evil upon the righteous, and which seem to demand an 
afterplace of reparation and vengeance. Beside those un- 
settled questions between man and man, which death breaks 
off at the middle, and for the adjustment of which one feels 
as if it were the cry of eternal justice that there should be a 
reckoning afterwards — beside these, there is felt, more di- 
rectly and vividly still, the sense of a yet unsettled contro- 
versy, between the sinner and the Grod whom he has offended. 
The notion of immortality is far more powerfully and habit- 
ually suggested by the perpetual hauntings or misgivings of 
this sort of undefined terror, by the dread of a coming penalty 
— rather than by the consciousness of merit, or of a yet un- 
satisfied claim to a well-earned reward. Nor is the argument 
at all lessened by that observed phenomenon in the history 
of guilt, the decay of conscience ; a hebetude, if it may be so 
termed, of the moral sensibilities, which keeps pace with the 
growth of a man's wickedness, and, at times, becomes quite 
inveterate towards the termination of his moral career. The 
very torpor a#d tranquillity of such a state, would only appear 



120 



POWER ATsV OPERATION OP HABIT. 



all the more emphatically to tell, that a day of account is 
yet to come, when instead of rioting, as heretofore, in the 
impunity of a hardihood that shields him alike from reproach 
and fear, conscience will at length reawaken to upbraid him 
for his misdoings ; at once the assertor of its own cause, and 
the executioner of its own sentence. And even the most 
desperate in crime, do experience, at times, such gleams and 
resuscitations of moral light, as themselves feel to be the pre- 
cursors of a revelation still more tremendous — when their 
own conscience, fully let loose upon them, shall, in the hands 
of an angry God, be a minister of fiercest vengeance. Cer- 
tain it is, that if death, instead of an entire annihilation, be 
but a removal to another and a different scene of existence, 
we see in this, when combined with the known laws and 
processes of the mind, the possibility at least, of such a con- 
summation. There is much in the business, and entertain- 
ments, and converse, and day-light of that urgent and 
obtruding world by which we are surrounded, to carry off the 
attention of the mind, from its own guiltiness, and so, to 
suspend that agony, which, when thrown back upon itself 
and dissevered from all its objects of gratification, will be 
felt, without mitigation and without respite. In the busy 
whirl of life, the mind, drawn upon in all directions, can find, 
outwardly and abroad, the relief of a constant diversion from 
the misery of its own internal processes. But a slight 
change in its locality or its circumstances, would deliver it 
up to the full burden and agony of these ; nor can we 
imagine a more intense and intolerable wretchedness, than 
that which would ensue, simply by rescinding the connection 
which obtains in this world between a depraved mind and its 
external means of gratification — when, forced inwardly on 
its own haunted tenement, it met with nothing there but 
revenge unsatiated ; and raging appetites, thai never rest 



POWEE AND OPEEATIO^ OP HABIT. 



121 



from their unappeased fermentation ; and withal, joined to 
this perpetual sense of want, a pungent and pervading sense of 
worthlessness. It is the constant testimony of criminals, 
that, in the horrors and the tedium of solitary imprisonment, 
they undergo the most appalling of all penalties — a penalty, 
therefore, made up of moral elements alone ; as neither pain, 
nor hunger, nor sickness, necessarily forms any of its ingre- 
dients. It strikingly demonstrates the character of Him 
who so constructed our moral nature, that from the workings 
of its mechanism alone, there should be evolved a suffering 
so tremendous on the children of iniquity, insomuch that a 
sinner meets with sorest vengeance when simply left to the 
fruit of his own ways — whether by the death Avhich carries 
his disembodied spirit to its Tartarus : or by a resurrection 
to another scene of existence, where, in full possession of his 
earthly habits and earthly passions, he is nevertheless doomed 
to everlasting separation from their present counterpart and 
earthly enjoyments. 

14. There is a distinction sometimes made between the 
natural and arbitrary rewards of virtue, or between the 
natural and arbitrary punishments of vice. The arbitrary is 
exemplified in the enactments of human law ; there in 
general being no natural or necessary connection between 
the crimes which it denounces, and the penalties which it 
ordains for them — as between the fine, or the imprisonment, 
or the death, upon the one hand ; and the act of violence, 
whether more or less outrageous, upon the other. The 
natural, again, is exemplified in the workings of the human 
constitution ; there being a connection, in necessity and 
nature, between the temper which prompted the act of vio- 
lence, and the wretchedness which it inflicts on him who is 
the unhappy subject, in his own bosom, of its fierce and 
restless agitations. It is thus that not only virtue is termed 



122 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 



its own reward, but vice its own greatest plague or self- 
tormentor. "We have no information of the arbitrary re- 
wards or punishments in a future state, but from revelation 
alone. But of the natural, we have only to suppose, that the 
existing constitution of man, and his existing habits, shall be 
borne with him to the land of eternity : and we may inform 
ourselves now of these, by the experience of our own felt and 
familiar nature. Our own experience can tell that the native 
delights of virtue, unaided by any high physical gratifications, 
and only if not disturbed by grievous physical annoyances, 
were enough of themselves to costitute an elysium of pure 
and perennial happiness : and, again, that the native agonies 
of vice, unaided by any infliction of physical suffering, and 
only if unalleviated by a perpetual round of physical enjoy- 
ments, were enough of themselves to constitute a dire and 
dreadful Pandemonium. They are not judicially awarded^ 
but result from the workings of that constitution which God 
hath given to us ; and they speak as decisively the purpose 
and character of Him — who is the author of that constitution^ 
— as would any code of jurisprudence proclaimed from the 
sanctuary of heaven, and which assigned to virtue, on the 
one hand, the honours and rewards of a blissful immortality 
— to vice on the other, a place of anguish among the out- 
casts of a fiery condemnation. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

On the General Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral 
Constitution of Man. 

1. It needs but a cursory observation of life to be made 
sensible, that man lias not been endowed with a conscience^ 
without, at the same time, being placed in a theatre which 
afforded the most abundant scope and occasion for its 
exercise. The truth is, that, in the multitude of fellow- 
beings by whom he is surrounded, and in the manifold 
variety of his social and family relations, there is a perpetual 
call on his sense of right and wrong — insomuch, that to the 
doings of every hour throughout his waking existence, one 
or other of these moral designations is applicable. It might 
have been stigmatized as the example of a mal-adjustment in 
the circumstances of our species, had man been provided 
with a waste feeling or a waste faculty, which remained 
dormant and unemployed from the want of counterpart 
objects that were suited to it. The wisdom of God admits 
of glorious vindication against any such charge in the physi- 
cal department of our nature, where the objective and subjec- 
tive have been made so marvellously to harmonize with each 
other : there beiug, in the material creation, sights of infi- 
nitely varied loveliness, and sounds of as varied melody, and 
many thousand tastes and odours of exquisite gratification, 
and distinctions innumerable of touch and feeling, to meet 
the whole compass and diversity of the human senses — 
multiplying without end, both the notice that we receive 
from external things, and the enjoyments that we derive 
from them. And as little in the moral department of our 



124 



ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL KATURE TO 



nature, is any of its faculties, and more especially the great 
and master faculty of all, left to languish from the want of 
occupation. The whole of life, in fact, is crowded with 
opportunities for its employment — or, rather, instead of being 
represented as the subject of so many distinct and ever- 
recurring calls, conscience may well be represented as the 
constant guide and guardian of human life ; and, for the right 
discharge of this its high office, as being kept on the alert 
perpetually. The creature on whom conscience hath laid the 
obligation of refraining from all mischief, and rendering to 
society all possible good, lives under a responsibility which 
never for a single moment is suspended. He may be said 
to possess a continuity of moral being ; and morality, whether 
of a good or evil hue, tinges the whole current of his history. 
It is a thing of constancy as well as a thing of frequency ; 
for, even when not carried forth into action, it is not dormant, 
but possesses the mind in the form of a cherished purpose or 
cherished principle, or, as the Eomans expressed it, of a per- 
petual will either to that which is good or evil. But over and 
above this, the calls to action are innumerable. In the wants 
of others ; in their powers of enjoyment ; in their claims on 
our equity, our protection, or our kindness ; in the various 
openings and walks of usefulness ; in the services which even 
the humblest might render to those of their own family, or 
household, or country ; in the application of that comprehensive 
precept, to do good unto all men as we have opportunity — we 
behold a prodigious number and diversity of occasions for the 
exercise of moral principle. It is possible that the lessons of a 
school may not be arduous enough nor diversified enough for 
the capacity of a learner. But this cannot be affirmed of 
that school of discipline, alike arduous and unremitting, to 
which the great Author of our being hath introduced us. 
Along with the moral capacity by which He hath endowed 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



125 



us, He hath provided a richly furnished gymnasium for its 
exercises and its trials — where we ma)' earn, if not the 
triumphs of virtue, at least some delicious foretastes of that 
full and final blessedness for which the scholarship of human 
life, with its manifold engagements and duties, is so obviously 
fitted to prepare us. 

2. But let us now briefly state the adaptation of external 
nature to the moral constitution of man, with a reference to 
that threefold generality which we have already expounded. 
"We have spoken of the supremacy of conscience, and of the 
inherent pleasures and pains of virtue and vice, and of the 
law and operation of habit, as forming three distinct argu- 
ments for the moral goodness of Him who hath so constructed 
our nature, that by its workings alone, man should be so 
clearly and powerfully warned to a life of righteousness — 
should in the native and immediate joys of rectitude earn so 
precious a reward — and, finally, should be led onward to 
such a state of character, in respect of its confirmed good or 
confirmed evil, as to afford one of the likeliest prognostica- 
tions which nature offers to our view of an immortality 
beyond the grave, where we shall abundantly reap the con- 
sequence of our present doings, in either the happiness of 
established virtue, or the utter wretchedness and woe of our 
then inveterate depravity. But hitherto we have viewed 
this nature of man rather as an individual and insulated 
constitution, than as a mechanism acted upon by any forces 
or influences from without. It is in this latter aspect that 
we are henceforth to regard it ; and now only it is that we 
enter on the proper theme of our volume, or that the adap- 
tations of the objective to the subjective [or of external na- 
ture to the mental constitution of man] begin to open upon 
us. It will still be recollected, however, # that in our view 

* See Introductory Chapter, 1, 2, .3. 



126 



ADAPTATION OP EXTEEKAL NATURE TO 



of external nature, we comprehend, not merely all that is 
external to the world of mind— for this would have restricted 
us to the consideration of those reciprocal actings which take 
place between mind and matter. We further comprehend 
all that is external to one individual mind, and therefore the 
other minds which are around it : and so we have appro- 
priated, as forming a part of our legitimate subject, the 
actings and reactings that take place between man and man 
in society. 

3. And first, in regard to the power and sensibility of 
conscience, there is a most important influence brought to 
bear on each individual possessor of this faculty from without, 
and by his fellow-men. It will help us to understand it 
aright, if we reflect on a felt and familiar experience of all 
men — even the effect of a very slight notice, often of a single 
word from one of our companions, to recall some past scene 
or transaction of our lives, which had long vanished from our 
remembrance : and would, but for this re-awakening, have re- 
mained in deep oblivion to the end of our days. The phe- 
nomenon can easily be explained by the laws of suggestion. 
Our wonted trains of thought might never have conducted 
the mind to any thought or recollection of the event in 
question — whereas, on the occurrence of even a very partial 
intimation, all the associated circumstances come into vivid 
recognition : and we are transported back again to the 
departed realities of former years, that had lain extinct 
within us for so long a period, and might have been extinct 
for ever, if not lighted up again by an extraneous application. 
How many are the days since early boyhood, of which not 
one trace or vestige now abides upon the memory ! Yet per- 
haps there is not one of those days, the history of which could 
not be recalled, by means of some such external or foreign 
help to the remembrance of it. Let us imagine, for example, 



THE HOEAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



127 



that a daily companion had, unknown to us, kept a minute 
and statistical journal of all the events we personally shared 
in ; and the likelihood is, that, if admitted to the perusal of 
this document, even after the lapse of half a lifetime, our 
memory would depone to many thousand events, which had 
else escaped into utter and irrecoverable forgetfulness. It 
is certainly remarkable, that, on some brief utterance by 
another, the stories of former days should suddenly reappear 
as if in illumined characters, on the tablet from which they 
had so totally faded ; that the mention of a single circum- 
stance, if only the link of a train, should conjure to life again 
a whole host of sleeping recollections : And so, in each of 
our fellow-men, might we have a remembrancer, who can 
vivify our consciousness anew, respecting scenes and transac- 
tions of our former history which had long gone by ; and 
which, after having vanished once from a solitary mind left 
to its own processes, would have vanished everlastingly. 

4, It is thus, that, not only can one man make instant 
translation of his own memory ; but on certain subjects, he 
can even make instant translation of his own intelligence 
into the mind of another. A shrewd discerner of the heart, 
when laying open its heretofore unrevealed mysteries, makes 
mention of things which at the moment we feel to be novel- 
ties ; but which, almost at the same moment, are felt and 
recognised by us as truths ; and that, not because we receive 
them upon his authority, but on the independent view that 
ourselves have of their own evidence. His utterance, in fact, 
has evoked from the cell of their imprisonment, remem- 
brances, which but for him might never have been awakened ; 
and, which, when thus summoned into existence, are so many 
vouchers for the perfect wisdom and truth of what he tells. 
A thousand peculiarities of life and character, till then unno- 
ticed, are no sooner heard by us, although for the first time 



128 



ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE 



in our lives, than they shine before the mind's eye, in the 
light of a satisfying demonstration. And the reason is, that 
the materials of their proof have been actually stored up 
within us, by the history and experience of former years, 
though in chambers of forgetfulness — whence, however, they 
are quickly and vividly called forth, as if with the power of 
a talisman, by the voice of him, who no sooner announces his 
proposition, than he suggests the by-gone recollections of our 
own which serve to confirm it. The pages of the novelist, or 
the preacher, or the moral essayist, though all of them should 
deal in statements alone, without the formal allegation of 
evidence, may be informed throughout with evidence, notwith- 
standing : and that, because each of them speaks to the con- 
sciousness of his readers, unlocking a treasury of latent re- 
collections, which no sooner start again into being, than they 
become witnesses for the sagacity aud admirable sense of him 
with whom all this luminous and satisfying converse is held. 
It is like the holding up of a mirror, or the response of an echo 
to a voice. What the author discovers, the reader promptly 
and presently discerns. The one utters new things : but 
that light of immediate manifestation in which the other 
beholds them, is struck out of old materials which himself too 
had long since appropriated, but laid up in a dormitory, 
where they might have slumbered for ever, had it not been 
for that voice which charmed them anew into life and con- 
sciousness. This is the only way in which the instant re- 
cognition of truths before unheard of and unknown can 
possibly be explained. It is because their evidence! lies 
enveloped in the reminiscences of other days, which had long 
passed into oblivion ; but are again presented to the notice 
of the mind by the power of association. 

5. This is properly a case of intellectual rather than of 
moral adaptation ; and is only now adverted to for the purpose 



THE iTORAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



129 



of illustration. Tor a decayed conscience is susceptible of 
like resuscitation with a decayed memory. In treating of 
the effects of habit, we briefly noticed^ 5 the gradual weaken- 
ing of conscience, as the indulgences of vice were persisted 
in. Its remonstrances, however ineffectual, may, at the first, 
have had a part in that train of thought and feeling, which 
commences with a temptation, and is consummated in guilt ; 
but in proportion to the frequency wherewith the voice of 
conscience is hushed, or overborne, or refused entertainment 
by the mind, in that proportion does it lift up a feebler and 
a fainter voice afterwards — till at length it may come to be 
unheard ; and any suggestions from this faculty may either 
pass unheeded, or perhaps drop out of the train altogether. 
It is thus that many a foul or horrid immorality may come 
at length to be perpetrated without the sense or feeling of 
its enormity. Conscience, with the repeated stiflings it has 
undergone, may, as if on the eve of extinction, have ceased 
from its exercises. This moral insensibility forms, in truth, 
one main constituent in the hardihood of crime. The con- 
science is cradled into a state of stupefaction ; and the crimi- 
nal, now a desperado in guilt, may prosecute his secret 
depravities, with no relentings from within, and no other 
dread upon his spirit than that of discovery by his fellow- 
men. 

6. And it is on the event of such discovery that we meet 
with the phenomenon in question. When that guilt, to 
which he had himself become so profoundly insensible, is at 
length beheld in the light of other minds, it is then that the 
scales are made to fall from the eyes of the offender ; and he, 
as if suddenly awoke from lethargy, stands aghast before the 
spectacle of his own worthlessness. It is not the shame of 



* See Chap. iii. 6, of this Part. 



130 



ADAPTATION OF EXTEKNAL NATURE TO 



detection, nor the fear of its consequences, which forms the 
whole of this distress. These may aggravate the suffering, 
but they do not altogether compose it ; for often, besides, is 
there a resurrection of the moral sensibilities within the 
bosom of the unhappy criminal, as if relumed at the torch 
of sympathy, with the pronounced judgments and feelings of 
other men. "When their unperverted and unwarped con- 
sciences, because free from the delusions which encompass 
his own, give forth a righteous sentence, they enlist his con- 
science upon their side, which then reasserts its power, and 
again speaks to him in a voice of thunder. "When that con- 
tinuous train between the first excitement of some guilty 
passion, and its final gratification, from which the sugges- 
tions of the moral faculty had been so carefully excluded, is 
thus arrested and broken — then does conscience, as if eman- 
cipated from a spell, at times recover from the infatuation 
which held it; and utter reproaches of its own, more terrible 
to the sinner's heart than all the execrations of general so- 
ciety. And whatever shall forcibly terminate the guilty in- 
•dulgence, may, by interrupting the accustomed series of 
thoughts and purposes and passions, also dissipate and put 
an end to the inveteracy of this moral or spiritual blindness. 
The confinement of a prison-house may do it. The confine- 
ment of a death-bed may do it. And accordingly, on these 
occasions, does conscience, after an interval it would seem, 
not of death but only of suspended animation, come forth 
with the might of an avenger, and make emphatic represen- 
tation of her wrongs. 

7. But this influence w r hich we have attempted to exhibit 
in bold relief, by means of rare and strong exemplification, 
is in busy and perpetual operation throughout society— and 
that, more to prevent crime than to punish it; rather, to 
maintain the conscience in freshness and integrity, than to 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



131 



reanimate it from a state of decay, or to recall its aberra- 
tions. Indeed, its restorative efficacy, though far more 
striking, is not so habitual, nor in the whole amount so 
salutary, as its counteractive efficacy. The truth is, that we 
cannot frequent the companionships of human life, without 
observing the constant circulation and reciprocal play of the 
moral judgments among men — with whom there is not a 
more favourite or familiar exercise, than that of discussing 
the conduct, and pronouncing on the deserts of each other. 
It is thus, that every individual, liable in his own case to be 
misled or blinded by the partialities of interest and passion, 
is placed under the observation and guardianship of his 
fellows — who, exempted from his personal or particular bias, 
give forth a righteous sentence, and cause it to be heard. 
A pure moral light is by this means kept up in society, 
composed of men whose thoughts are ever employed in "ac- 
cusing or else excusing one another" — so that every indi- 
vidual conscience receives an impulse and a direction from 
sympathy with the consciences around it. We are aware 
that the love of applause intervenes at this point as a distinct 
and auxiliary influence. But the primary influence is a 
moral one. Each man lives under a consciousness of the 
vigilant and discerning witnesses who are on every side of 
him ; and his conscience, kept on the alert, and kept in ac- 
cordance with theirs, acts both more powerfully and more 
purely, than if left to the decay and the self-deception of its 
own withering solitude. The lamp which might have waxed 
dim by itself, revives its fading lustre, by contact and com- 
munication with those which burn more brightly in other 
bosoms than its own ; and this law of interchange between 
mind and mind, forms an important adaptation in the me- 
chanism of human society. 

8. But, to revert for a moment to the revival of conscien c 



132 



ADAPTATION OP EXTEEKAL NATURE TO 



after that its sensibilities had become torpid for a season ; 
and they are quickened anew, as if by sympathy, with the 
moral judgments of other men. This phenomenon of con- 
science seems to afford another glimpse or indication of fu- 
turity. It at least tells with what facility that Being, who 
hath all the resources of infinity at command, could, and that 
by an operation purely mental, inflict the vengeance of a 
suffering the most exquisite, on the children of disobedience. 
He has only to reopen the fountains of memory and con- 
science ; and this will of itself cause distillation within the 
soul of the waters of bitterness. And if in the voice of 
earthly remembrancers and earthly judges, we observe such 
a power of reawakening — we might infer, not the possibility 
alone, but the extreme likelihood of a far more vivid re- 
awakening, when the offended Lawgiver himself takes the 
judgment into His own hands. If the rebuke of human 
tongues and human eyes be of such force to revive the sleep- 
ing agony within us, what[may we not feel, when the adverse 
sentence is pronounced against us from the throne of God, 
and in the midst of a universal theatre ! If, in this our little 
day, the condemnation is felt to be insupportable, that 
twinkles upon us from the thousand secondary and sub- 
ordinate lustres by which we are surrounded — what must it 
be, when He, by whose hand they have all been lighted up, 
turns towards us the strength of His own countenance, and, 
with His look of reprobation, sends forth trouble and dismay 
over the hosts of the rebellious ! * 

* Dr. Abercromby, in his interesting work on the Intellectual Powers, 
states some remarkable cases of resuscitated and enlarged memory, which 
remind one of the explanation given by Mr. Coleridge of the opening of 
the books in the day of judgment. It is on the opening of the book of 
conscience that the sinner is made to feel the truth and righteousness of 
his condemnation. 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION Or MAN. 



133 



9. But besides the pleasures and pains of conscience, 
there is, in the very taste and feeling of moral qualities, a 
pleasure or a pain. This formed our second general argu- 
ment in favour of God's righteous administration ; and our 
mental constitution, even when viewed singly, furnishes 
sufficient materials on which to build it. But the argument 
is greatly strengthened and enhanced by the adaptation to 
that constitution of external nature, more especially as ex- 
emplified in the reciprocal influences which take place be- 
tween mind and mind in society : for the effect of this adap- 
tation is to multiply both the pleasures of virtue and the 
•sufferings of vice. The first, the original pleasure, is that 
which is felt by the virtuous man himself; as, for example, 
by the benevolent, in the very sense and feeling of that 
kindness whereby his heart is actuated. The second is felt 
by him who is the object of this kindness — for merely in the 
•conscious possession of another's good-will, there is a great 
and distinct enjoyment. And then the manifested kindness 
of the former awakens gratitude in the bosom of the latter ; 
and this, too, is a highly pleasurable emotion. And lastly, 
gratitude sends back a delicious incense to the benefactor 
who awakened it. By the purely mental interchange o. 
these affections, there is generated a prodigious amount of 
happiness ; and that, altogether independent of the gratifica- 
tions which are yielded by the material gifts of liberality on 
the one hand, or by the material services of gratitude on the 
other. Insomuch, that we have only to imagine a reign of 
perfect virtue ; and then, in spite of the physical ills which 
essentially and inevitably attach to our condition, we should 
feel as if we had approximated very nearly to a state of per- 
fect enjoyment among men — or, in other words, that the 
bliss of paradise would be almost fully realized upon earth, 
were but the moral graces and charities of paradise firmly 



134 ADAPTATION OE EXTERNAL NATURE TO 



established there, and in full operation. Let there be honest 
and universal good-will in every bosom, and this be responded 
to from all who are the objects of it by an honest gratitude 
back again ; let kindness, in all its various effects and mani- 
festations, pass and repass from one heart and countenance 
to another; let there be a universal courteousness in our 
streets, and let fidelity and affection and all the domestic 
virtues take up their secure and lasting abode in every 
family; let the succour and sympathy of a willing neighbour- 
hood be ever in readiness to meet and to overpass all the 
want and wretchedness to which humanity is liable ; let 
truth and honour and inviolable friendship between man and 
man, banish all treachery and injustice from the world ; in 
the walks of merchandise, let an unfailing integrity on the 
one side, have the homage done to it of unbounded confidence 
on the other — insomuch, that each man, reposing with con- 
scious safety on the uprightness and attachment of his 
fellow, and withal rejoicing as much in the prosperity of an 
acquaintance as he should in his own, there would come to 
be no place for the harassments and the heartburning of 
mutual suspicion, or resentment, or envy ; — who does not see^ 
in the state of a society thus constituted and thus harmonized, 
the palpable evidence of a nature so framed, that the hap- 
piness of the world and the righteousness of the world kept 
pace the one with the other ? And it is all-important to 
remark of this happiness, that, in respect both to quality and 
amount, it mainly consists of moral elements ; so that while 
every giver who feels as he ought, experiences a delight in 
the exercise of generosity which rewards him a hundred-fold 
for all its sacrifices — every receiver who feels as he ought, 
rejoices infinitely more in the sense of the benefactor's kind- 
ness, than in the physical gratification or fruit of the bene- 
factor's liberality. It is saying much for the virtuousness 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



135 



of Him who hath so moulded and so organized the spirit of 
man, that, apart from sense and from all its satisfactions, 
but from the ethereal play of the good affections alone, the 
highest felicity of our nature should be generated; that, 
simply by the interchange of cordiality between man and 
man, and one benevolent emotion re-echoing to another, 
there should be yielded to human hearts so much of the 
truth and substance of real enjoyment — so that did justice 
and charity and holiness descend from heaven to earth, 
taking full and universal possession of our species, the hap- 
piness of heaven would be sure to descend along with them. 
Could any world be pointed out, where the universality and 
reign of vice effected the same state of blissful and secure 
enjoyment that virtue would in ours — we should infer that 
he was the patron and the friend of vice who had dominion 
over it. But when assured, on the experience we have of 
our actual nature, that in the world we occupy, a perfect 
morality would, but for certain physical calamities, be the 
harbinger of a perfect enjoyment — we regard this as an in- 
contestable evidence for the moral goodness of our own 
actual Deity. 

10. And in such an argument as ours, although the main 
beatitudes of virtue are of a moral and spiritual character, 
its subserviency to the physical enjoyments of life ought not 
to be overlooked, though, perhaps, too obvious to be dwelt 
upon. The most palpable of these subserviencies is the 
effect of benevolence in diffusing abundance among the 
needy, and so alleviating the ills of their destitution* This 
is so very patent as not to require being expatiated on. Yet 
we might notice here one important adaptation, connected 
with the exercise of this morality — realized but in part, so 
long as virtue has only a partial occupation in society ; but 
destined, we hope, to receive its entire and beautiful accom- 



136 ADAPTATION OE EXTERNAL NATURE TO 



plishment, when virtue shall have become universal. It is 
well known that certain collateral but very serious mischiefs 
attend the exercise of a profuse and capricious and indiscri- 
minate charity ; that it may, in fact, augment and aggravate 
the indigence which it tries to relieve, besides working a 
moral deterioration among the humbler classes, by minister- 
ing to the reckless improvidence of the dissipated and the idle ; 
an operation alike injurious to the physical comfort of the 
one party, and to the moral comfort of the other. These 
effects are inevitable, so long as the indiscriminate benevo- 
lence of the rich meets with an indefinite selfishness and 
rapacity on the part of the poor. But this evil will be miti- 
gated and at length done away with the growth of principle 
among mankind ; and more especially, when, instead of 
being confined to one of these classes, it is partitioned among 
both. Let the wealthy be as generous as they ought in their 
doings, and the poor be as moderate as they ought in their 
expectations and desires ; and then will that problem, which 
has so baffled the politicians and economists of England, find 
its own spontaneous, while, at the same time, its best adjust- 
ment. Let an exuberant yet well-directed liberality on the 
one side come into encounter, instead of a sordid and 
insatiable appetency, with the recoil of delicacy and self- 
respect upon the other, and the noble independence of men 
who will work with their own hands rather than be burden- 
some ; and then will the benefactions of the wealthy, and the 
wants of the indigent, not only meet but overpass. The 
willingness of the one party to give, will exceed the willingness 
of the other to receive ; and an evil which threatens to rend 
society asunder, and which law in her attempts to remedy 
has only exasperated, will at length give way before the 
omnipotence of moral causes. This, as being one of many 
specimens, tells most significantly that man was made for 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



137 



virtue, or that this was the purpose of God in making him — 
when we find, that through no other medium than the mo- 
rality of the people, can the sorest distempers of society be 
healed. The impotence of human wisdom, and of every poli- 
tical expedient which this wisdom can devise for the well- 
being of a state, when virtue languishes among the people, 
is one of the strongest proofs which experience affords, that 
virtue was the design of our creation. And we know not 
how more emphatic demonstration can be given of a virtuous 
Deity, than when we find society to have been so constructed 
by His hands, that virtue forms the great alternative on 
which the secure or lasting prosperity of a commonwealth 
is hinged — so that for any aggregate of human beings to be 
right physically and right economically, it is the indispens- 
able, while at the same time the all- effectual condition, that 
they should be right morally. 

11. Nothing can be more illustrative of the character of 
God, or more decisive of the question, whether His pre- 
ference is for universal virtue or for universal vice in the 
world, than to consider the effects of each on the wellbeing 
of human society — even that society which He did Himself 
ordain, and whose mechanism is the contrivance of His own 
intellect, and the work of His own hands. It may not be easy 
to explain the origin of that moral derangement into which 
the species has actually fallen ; but it affords no obscure or 
uncertain indication of what the species was primarily made 
for, when we picture to ourselves the difference between a 
commonwealth of vice and a commonwealth of virtue. We 
have already said enough on the obvious connection which 
obtains between the righteousness of a nation and the happi- 
ness of its families ; and it were superfluous to dilate on 
the equally obvious connection which obtaius between a 
state of general depravity, and a state of general wretched- 



138 ADAPTATION Or EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

ness and disorder. And the counterpart observation holds 
true, that, as the beatitudes of the one condition, so th& 
sufferings of the other are chiefly made up of moral elements* 
If, in the former, there be a more precious and heartfelt en* 
joyment in the possession of another's kindness, than in all 
the material gifts and services to which that kindness has 
prompted him — so in the latter, may it often happen, that 
the agony arising from simple consciousness of another's 
malignity, will greatly exceed any physical hurt, whether in 
person or property, that we ever shall sustain from him. A 
loss that we suffer from the dishonesty of another is far 
more severely felt than a tenfold loss occasioned by accident 
or misfortune — or, in other words, we find the moral provo* 
cation to be greatly more pungent and intolerable than the 
physical calamity. So that beside the material damage, too 
palpable to be insisted on at any length, which vice and vio- 
lence inflict upon society, there should be taken into account 
the soreness of spirit, the purely mental distress and disquiet 
tude which follow in their train— of which we have already 
seen how much is engendered even in the workings of one 
individual mind ; but susceptible of being inflamed to a de- 
gree indefinitely higher, by the reciprocal working of minds, 
all of them hating and all hateful to each other. In this 
mere antipathy of the heart, more especially when aided by 
nearness and the opportunities of mutual expression, there are 
sensations of most exquisite bitterness. There is a wretch- 
edness in the mere collision of hostile feelings themselves, 
though they should break not forth into overt-acts of hosti- 
lity ; in the simple demonstrations of malignity, apart from 
its doings ; in the war but of words and looks and fierce 
gesticulations, though no violence should be inflicted on 
the one side or sustained upon the other. To make the 
aggressor in these purely mental conflicts intensely misera* 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION OF MAIS". 



139 



ble, it is~enough that he should experience within him the 
agitations and the fires of a resentful heart. To make the 
recipient intensely miserable, it is enough that he should be 
demoniacally glared upon by a resentful eye. "Were this 
power which resides in the emotions by themselves suffi- 
ciently reflected on, it would evince how intimately connected, 
almost how identified, wickedness and wretchedness are with 
each other. To realize the miseries of a state of war, it is not 
necessary that there should be contest of personal strength* 
The mere contest of personal feeling will suffice. Let there 
be mutual rage and mutual revilings ; let there be the pangs 
and the outcries of fierce exasperation ; let there be the con- 
tinual droppings of peevishness and discontent ; let disdain 
meet with equal disdain ; or even, instead of scorn from the 
lofty, let there be but the slights and insults of contempt 
from men who themselves are of the most contemptible ; let 
there be haughty defiance, and spiteful derision, and the 
mortifications of affronted and irritated pride — in the tumults 
of such a scene, though tumults of the mind alone, there 
were enough to constitute a hell of assembled maniacs or 
of assembled malefactors. The very presence and operation 
of these passions would form their own sorest punishment. 
To have them perpetually in ourselves is to have a hell in 
the heart. To meet with them perpetually in others, is to 
be compassed about with a society of fiends, to be beset 
with the miseries of a Pandemonium. 

12. Whether we look then to the separate or the social 
constitution of humanity, we observe abundant evidence for 
the mind and meaning of the Deity, who both put together 
the elements of each individual nature, and the elements 
which enter into the composition of society. We cannot 
imagine a more decisive indication of His favour being on 
the one side of moral good,aaid his displeasure against moral 



140 



ADAPTATION Or EXTERNAL NAT U EE TO 



evil, than that, by the working of each of these constitutions, 
virtue and happiness on the one hand, vice and wretchedness 
on the other, should be so intimately and inseparably allied. 
Such sequences or laws of nature as these, speak as distinctly 
the character of Him who established them, as any laws of 
jurisprudence would the character of the monarch by whom 
they were enacted. And to learn this lesson, we do not need 
to wait for the distant consequences of vice or virtue. We 
at once feel the distinction put upon them by the hand of 
the Almighty, in the instant sensations which He hath ap- 
pended to each of them —implicated as their effects are with 
the very fountain-head of moral being, and turning the 
hearts which they respectively occupy, into the seats either 
of wildest anarchy, or of serene and blissful enjoyment. 

13. The law and operation of habit, as exemplified in one 
individual mind, formed the theme of our third general ar- 
gument. The only adaptation which we shall notice to this 
part of our mental constitution in the framework of society, 
is that afforded by the changes which it undergoes in the 
flux of its successive generations— in virtue of which, the 
tender susceptibilities of childhood are placed under the in- 
fluence of that ascendant seniority which precedes or goes 
before it. At first sight it may be thought of this peculiarity, 
that it tells equally in both directions — that is, either in the 
transmission and accumulation of vice, or in the trans- 
mission and accumulation of virtue in the world. But 
there is one circumstance of superiority in favour of the 
latter, which bids us look hopefully onward to the final pre- 
valence of the good over the evil. We are aware of the 
virulence wherewith, in families, the crime and profligacy of 
a depraved parentage must operate on the habits of their 
offspring ; and of the deadly poison which, in crowded cities, 
passes with quick descent from the older to the younger, 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN, 



141 



along the links of youthful companionship ; and even of those 
secret, though we trust rare and monstrous societies, which 
in various countries and various ages, were held for the 
celebration of infernal orgies, for the initiation of the yet 
unknowing or unpractised in the mysteries of vice. But 
after every deduction has been made for these, who does 
not see that the systematic and sustained effort, the wide 
and general enterprise, the combination of numbers in the 
face of day and with the sympathies of an approving public, 
give a prodigious balance on the side of moral education ? 
The very selfishness of vice and expansiveness of virtue give 
rise to this difference between them — the one concentred on 
its own personal enjoyments, and, with a few casual excep- 
tions, rather heedless of the principles of others than set on 
any schemes or speculations of proselytism ; the other, by 
its very nature, aspiring after the good of the whole species, 
and bent on the propagation of its own likeness, till righte- 
ousness and truth shall have become universal among men. 
Accordingly, all the ostensible countenance and exertion, in 
the cause of learning, whether by governments or associa- 
tions, is on the side of virtue ; while no man could dare to 
front the public eye, with a scheme of discipleship in the 
lessons whether of fraud or profligacy. The clear tendency 
then is to impress a right direction on the giant power of 
education ; and when this is brought to bear, more systema- 
tically and generally than heretofore, on the pliant boyhood 
of the land — we behold, in the operation of habit, a guarantee 
for the progressive conquests, and at length the ultimate and 
universal triumph of good over evil in society. Our confidence 
in this result is greatly enhanced, when we witness the in- 
fluence even of but one mind among the hundreds of any 
given neighbourhood — if zealously and wisely directed to the 
object of moral and economical improvement. Let that 



142 ADAPTATION OE EXTEE2TAL NATtJEE TO 

most prolific ol all philanthropy then be fully and fairly set 
on foot, which operates, by means of education, on the early 
germs of character ; and we shall have the most effective of 
all agency engaged, for the production of the likeliest of all 
results. The law of habit, when looked to in the manage- 
able ductility of its outset, presents a mighty opening for the 
production of a new era in the moral history of mankind ; 
and the same law of habit, when looked to in the maturity 
of its fixed and final establishment, encourages the expecta- 
tion of a permanent as well as universal reign of virtue in 
the world. 

14. Even in the yet chaotic and rudimental state of the 
world, we can observe the powers and the likelihoods of such 
a consummation ; and what gives an overbearing superiority 
to the chances on the side of virtue is, that parents, although 
the most sunken in depravity themselves, welcome the pro- 
posals, and receive with gratitude the services, of Christian 
or moral philanthropy in behalf of their families. However 
hopeless then of reformation among those whose vicious ha- 
bits have become inveterate, it is well that there should be 
so wide and unobstructed an access to those among whom 
the habits have yet to be formed. It is this which places 
education on such firm vantage-ground, if not for reclaiming 
the degeneracy of individuals, yet for reclaiming after the 
lapse of a few generations the degeneracy of the species ; and, 
however abortive many of the schemes and enterprises in this 
highest walk of charity may hitherto have proved, yet the 
manifest and growing attention to the cause does open a 
brilliant moral perspective for the ages that are to come. 
The experience of what has been done locally by a few zealous 
individuals, warrants our most cheering anticipations of what 
may yet be done universally— when the powers of that sim- 
ple but mighty instrument which they employ, if brought to 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION Or MAN. 



143 



bear on that most malleable of all subjects, the infancy of 
human existence, come to be better understood, and put into 
busy operation over the whole length and breadth of the 
land. In the grievous defect of our national institutions, and 
the wretched abandonment of a people left to themselves, 
and who are permitted to live recklessly and at random as 
they list — we see enough to account both for the profligacy 
of our crowded cities, and for the sad demoralization of our 
neglected provinces. But on the other hand we feel assured, 
that, in an efficient system of wise and well-principled in- 
struction, there are capabilities within our reach for a great 
and glorious revival. We might not know the reason why, 
in the moral world, so many ages of darkness and depravity 
should have been permitted to pass by — any more than we 
know the reason why, in the natural world, the trees of a 
forest, instead of starting all at once into the full efflorescence 
and stateliness of their manhood, have to make their slow 
and laborious advancement to maturity, cradled in storms, 
and alternately drooping or expanding with the vicissitudes 
of the seasons. But, though unable to scan all the cycles 
either of the moral or natural economy, yet may we recognise 
such influences at work, as, when multiplied and developed 
to the uttermost, are abundantly capable of regenerating the 
world. One of the likeliest of these influences is the power 
of education — to the perfecting of which so many minds are 
earnestly directed at this moment ; and for the general ac- 
ceptance of which in society, we have a guarantee, in the 
strongest affections and fondest wishes of the fathers and 
mothers of families. 



144 

CHAPTEE V. 

On the special and subordinate Adaptations of External Nature 
to the Moral Constitution of Man. 

1. "We have hitherto confined our attention to certain 
great and simple phenomena of our moral nature, which, 
although affording a different sort of evidence for the being 
of Grod from the organic and complicated structures of the 
material world — yet, on the hypothesis of an existent Deity, 
are abundantly decisive of His preference for virtue over 
vice, and so of the righteousness of His own character. 
That he should have inserted a great master faculty in every 
human bosom, all whose decisions are on the side of justice, 
benevolence, and truth, and condemnatory of their opposites ; 
that he should have invested this conscience with such 
powers of instant retribution, in the triumphs of that com- 
placency wherewith He so promptly rewards the good, and the 
horrors of that remorse wherewith He as promptly chastises 
the evil ; that beside these, He should have so distinguished 
between virtue and vice,* as that the emotions and exercises 

* Butler, in Part I. Chapter III. of his Analogy, makes the following- 
admirable discrimination between actions themselves, and that quality as- 
cribed to them which we call virtuous or vicious : — " An action by which 
any natural passion is gratified, or fortune acquired, produces delight or 
advantage, abstracted from all consideration of the morality, of such 
action : consequently, the pleasure or advantage in this case is gained by 
the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness, or viciousness of it, 
though it be, perhaps, virtuous or vicious. Thus to say, such an action or 
course of behaviour, procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on 
such inconvenience and pain, is quite a different thing from saying, that 
such good or bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such action or 
behaviour. In one case an action abstracted from all moral consideration, 
produced its effect. In the other case — for it will appear that there are 
such cases— the morality of the action, the action under a moral considera- 
tion, that is, the virtuousness or viciousness of it, produced the effect." 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 145 

of the former should all be pleasurable, and of the latter 
painful to the taste of the inner man ; that he should have so 
ordained the human constitution, as that by the law of habit, 
virtuous and vicious lives, or series of acts having these re- 
spective moral qualities, should issue in the fixed and per- 
manent results of virtuous and vicious characters — these 
form the important generalities of our moral nature : And 
while they obviously and immediately announce to us a 
present demonstration in favour of virtue, they seem to indi- 
cate a preparation and progress towards a state of things, 
when, after that the moral education of the present life has 
been consummated, the great Ruler of men will manifest the 
eternal distinction which he puts between the good and the 
evil. 

2. Now in these few simple sequences, however strongly 
and unequivocally they evince the character of a God already 
proved or already presupposed, we have not the same intense 
evidence for design, which is afforded by the distinct parts or 
the distinct principles of a very multifarious combination. Yet 
the constitution of man's moral nature is not defective in this 
evidence — though certainly neither so prolific nor so palpable 
in our mental as in our anatomical system. Still, however, 
there is a mechanism in mind as well as body, with a di- 
versity of principles, if not a diversity of parts, consisting of 
so many laws, grafted it may be on a simple and indivisible 
substance, yet yielding, in the fact of their beneficial concur- 
rence, no inconsiderable argument for the wisdom and good- 
ness of Him who framed us. Nor does it matter, as we 
have already said, whether these are all of them original, or 
some of them, as the analysts of mind have laboured to mani- 
fest, only derivative laws in the human constitution. If the 
former, we have an evidence grounded on the beneficial con- 
junction of a greater number of independent laws. If the 

L 



146 ADAPTATIONS OE EXTERNAL NATTJBE TO 



latter we are reduced to fewer independent laws — but these 
all the more prolific of useful applications, each of which 
applications is grounded on a beneficial adaptation of some 
peculiar circumstances, in the operation of which it is that 
the primary is transmuted into a secondary law.* But 
whether the one or the other, they exhibit phases of hu- 
manity distinct from any that we have yet been employed in 
contemplating ; a number of special affections, each charac- 
terised by its own name, and pointing to its own separate 
object, yet all of them performing an important subsidiary 
part, for the moral good both of the individual and of the 
species ; and presenting us, therefore, with the materials of 
additional evidence for a moral and beneficent design in the- 
formation of our race. 

3. "When we look to the beauty which overspreads the 
face of nature, and the exquisite gratification which it minis- 
ters to the senses of man— we cannot doubt either the taste 
for beauty which resides in the primeval Mind that emanated 
all this gracefulness, or the benevolence that endowed man 
with a kindred taste, and so fitted him for a kindred enjoy- 
ment. This conclusion, however, like any moral conclusion 
we have yet come to respecting the perfections or the pur- 
poses of G-od, is founded on generalities— on the general 
amount of beauty in the world, and the delight wherewith 
men behold and admire it. Tet, beside this, we may draw a, 
corroborative evidence for the same, from the machinery of 
certain special contrivances — as the construction of the 

* And besides this, would it not bespeak a more comprehensive wisdom 
on the part of a human artificer, that by means of one device, or by the 
application of one principle, he effected not a few, but many distinct and 
beneficial purposes ; and does it not in like manner enhance the exhibition 
of divine skill in the workmanship of nature, when a single law is found to 
subserve a vast and manifold variety of important uses ? 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 147 

calyx in plants, for the defence of the tender blossom 
previous to its expansion ; and the apparatus for scattering 
seeds, whereby the earth is more fully invested with its 
mantle of rich and varied garniture. And notwithstanding 
the blight which has so obviously passed over the moral 
world, and defaced many of its original lineaments, while it 
has left the materialism of creation, the loveliness of its scenes 
and landscapes, in a great measure untouched — still we 
possess very much the same materials for a Natural Theology, 
in reasoning on the element of virtue, as in reasoning on the 
element of beauty. "We have first those generalities of 
argument which are already expounded by us at sufficient 
length ; and we have also the evidence, now to be unfolded, 
of certain special provisions for the preservation and growth 
of the immortal plant, in the study of which, we shall observe 
more of mechanism than we have yet contemplated ; and 
more, therefore, of that peculiar argument for design, which 
lies in the adaptation of varied means, in the concurrence of 
distinct expedients, each helping the other onward to a cer- 
tain beneficial consummation. 

4. But we must here premise an observation extensively 
applicable in mental science. "When recognising the obvious 
subserviency of some given feeling or principle in the mind 
to a beneficial result, we are apt to imagine that it was, 
somehow or other, in the contemplation of this result, that 
the principle was generated ; and that therefore, instead of 
a distinct and original part of the human constitution, it is 
but a derivative from an anterior process of thought or cal- 
culation on the part of man, in the act of reflecting on what 
was most for the good of himself, or the good of society. In 
this way man is conceived to be in some measure the creator 
of his own mental constitution j or, at least, there are certain 
parts of it regarded as secondary, and the formation of which 



148 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 



is ascribed to the wisdom of man, which, if regarded as in- 
stinctive and primary, wonld have been ascribed to the 
wisdom of God. There are many writers, for example, on 
the origin and rights of property, who, instead of admitting 
what may be termed an instinct of appropriation, wonld 
hold the appropriating tendency to be the resnlt of hnman 
intelligence, after experience had of the convenience and 
benefits of such an arrangement. Now, on this subject we 
may take a lesson from the physical constitution of man. It is 
indispensable to the preservation of our animal system, that 
food should be received at certain intervals into the stomach. 
Yet, notwithstanding all the strength which is ascribed to 
the principle of self-preservation, and all the veneration 
which is professed by the expounders of our nature for the 
wisdom and foresight of man — the Author of our frame has 
not left this important interest merely to our care, or our 
consideration. He has not so trusted us to ourselves ; but 
has inserted among the other affections and principles where- 
with He has endowed us, the appetite of hunger — a strong 
and urgent and ever-recurring desire for food, which, it is 
most certain, stands wholly unconnected with any thought 
on our part, of its physical or posterior uses for the suste- 
nance of the body ; and from which it would appear, that we 
need to be not only reminded at proper intervals of this 
incumbent duty, but goaded on to it. Could the analysts of 
our nature have ascertained of hunger, that it was the 
product of man's reflection on the necessity of food, it might 
have been quoted as an instance of the care which man takes 
of himself. But it seems that he could not be thus confided, 
either with his own individual preservation, or with the pre- 
servation of his species ; and so, for the security of both these 
objects, strong appetites had to be given him, which, inca- 
pable of being resolved into any higher principles, stand 



THE MORAL C02n STITUTION OF MAK. 



149 



distinctly and unequivocally forth, as instances of the care 
that is taken of him by God. 

5. Now this, though it does not prove, yet may prepare 
us to expect similar provisions in the constitution of our 
minds. Indeed the operose and complicated system, which 
the great Architect of nature hath devised for our bodies, 
carries in it a sort of warning to those, who, enamoured of 
the simplifications of theory, would labour to reduce all our 
mental phenomena to one or two principles. There is no 
warrant for this in the examples which Anatomy and Phy- 
siology, those sciences that have to do with the animal 
economy of man, have placed before our eyes. Now, though 
we admit not this as evidence for the actual complexity of 
man's moral economy — it may at least school away those 
prepossessions of the fancy or of the taste, that would lead 
us to resist or to dislike such evidence when offered. We 
hold it not unlikely that the same Being, who to supplement 
the defects of human prudence, hath furnished us with dis- 
tinct corporeal appetites, that might prompt us to operations 
of the greatest subservient benefit both to the individual and 
the species — might also, to supplement the defects of human 
wisdom and principle, have furnished us with distinct men- 
tal affections or desires, both for our own particular good and 
the good of society. If man could not be left to his own 
guidance in matters which needed but the anticipation of a 
few hours ; but to save him from the decay and the death 
which must have otherwise ensued, had so powerful a re- 
membrancer and instigator given to him as the appetite of 
hunger — we ought not to marvel, should it be found that 
nature, in endowing him mentally, hath presumed on his in- 
capacity, either for wisely devising, or for regularly acting, 
with a view to distant consequences, and amid the compli- 
cated relations of human society. It may, on the one hand, 



150 ADAPTATIONS OT EXTERNAL NATTJEE TO 

have inserted forces, when the mere consideration of good 
effects would not have impelled ; or, on the other hand, may 
have inserted checks, when the mere consideration of evil 
effects would not have arrested. Yet so it is, that, because 
of the good that is thereby secured, and of the evil that is 
thereby shunned— we are apt to imagine of some of the most 
useful principles of our nature, that they are, somehow, the 
product of human manufacture ; the results of human intel- 
ligence, or of rapid processes of thought by man, sitting in 
judgment on the consequences of his actions, and wisely pro- 
viding either for or against them. Now it is very true, that 
the anger, and the shame, and the emulation, and the 
parental affection, and the compassion, and the love of re- 
putation, and the sense of property, and the conscience or 
moral sense- — are so many forces of a mechanism, which, if 
not thus furnished, and that too within certain proportions, 
- would run into a disorder that might have proved destructive 
both of the individual and of the species. For reasons already 
hinted at, we hold it immaterial to the cause of natural 
theism, whether these constitutional propensities of the hu- 
man mind are its original or its secondary laws ; but, at all 
events, it is enough for any argument of ours, that they are 
not so generated by the wisdom of man, as to supersede the 
inference which we draw from them, in favour both of the 
wisdom and goodness of Grod. 

0. The common definition given of anger, is an instance of 
•the tendency on the part of philosophers, if not to derive, at 
least to connect, the emotions of which we have been made 
susceptible with certain anterior or higher principles of our 
nature. Dr. Reid tells us that the proper object of resent- 
ment is an injury ; and that as "no man can have the notion of 
injustice without having the notion of justice," then, "if re- 
sentment be natural to man, the notion of justice must 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION 0? MAT. 



151 



be no less natural."* And Dr. Brown defines anger 
to be "that emotion of instant displeasure, which arises 
from the feeling of injury t done, or the discovery of in- 
jury intended, or, in many cases, from the discovery of 
the mere omission of good offices to which we conceived 
ourselves entitled, though this very omission may, of itself, 
be regarded as a species of injury." JSToav, the sense of 
injury implies a sense of its opposite — a sense of justice, 
therefore, or the conception of a moral standard, from which 
the injury that has awakened the resentment is felt to be a 
deviation. But as nothing ought to form part of a definition 
which is not indispensable to the thing defined, it would ap- 
pear, as if, in the judgment of both these philosophers, all 
who are capable of anger must also have, to a certain degree, 
a capacity of moral judgment or moral feeling. The pro- 
perty of resenting a hurt inflicted upon ourselves would, at 
this rate, argue, in all cases, a perception of what the moral 
and equitable adjustment would be ^between ourselves and 
others. Now, that these workings of a moral nature are 
essential to the feeling of anger, is an idea which admits of 
most obvious and decisive refutation — it being an emotion to 
which not only infants are competent, anterior to the first 
dawnings of their moral nature, but even idiots, with whom 
this nature is obliterated, or still more the inferior animals 
who want it altogether. There must be a sense of annoy- 

* In glaring" contradiction to this, is Dr. Reid's own affirmation regarding 
the brutes. He says, that " conscience is peculiar to man ; we see no ves- 
tige of it in the brute animals. It is one of those prerogatives by which 
we are raised above them." But animals are most abundantly capable of 
anger — even of that which, by a very general definition, is said to be the 
emotion that is awakened by a sense of injury, which sense of injury must 
imply in it the sense of its opposite, even of justice, and so land us in the 
conclusion, that brutes are capable of moral conception, or that they have 
a conscience. 



152 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTEKNAL 2TATUBE TO 

ance to originate the feeling ; but a sense of injury, implying 
as it does a power of moral judgment or sensibility, can be 
in no way indispensable to an emotion, exemplified in its 
utmost force and intensity by sentient creatures, in whom 
there cannot be detected even the first rudiments of a moral 
nature. Two dogs, when fighting for a bone, make as dis- 
tinct and declared an exhibition of their anger, as two human 
beings when disputing about the boundary of their contigu- 
ous fields. The emotion flashes as unequivocally from any of 
the inferior, as it does from the only rational and moral 
species on the face of our globe — as in the vindictive glare 
of an infuriated bull, or of a lioness robbed of her whelps, 
and who, as if making proclamation of her wrongs, gives 
forth her deep and reiterated cry to the echoes of the wilder- 
ness. It is an emotion, in fact, which seems co-extensive not 
only with moral but with physical sensation. And, if any faith 
can be placed in the physiognomy, or the natural signs, by 
which irrational creatures represent what passes within them 
— this passion announces itself as vividly and discernibly in 
the outcries of mutual resentment which ring throughout 
the amplitudes of savage and solitary nature, as in the con- 
tests of civilised men. 

7. The truth, then, seems to be, that the oflice of the 
moral faculty is, not to originate, but rather to confine and 
qualify and regulate this emotion. Anger, if we but study 
its history and actual exhibitions, will be found the primary 
and the natural response to a hurt or harm or annoyance of 
any sort inflicted on us by others ; and, as such, may be 
quite expansive and unrestrained and open to excitation from 
all points of the compass — anterior to and apart from any 
consideration of its justice, or whether, in the being who 
called it forth, there' have been the purpose or not of violating 
our rights. Infants are fully capable of the feeling, long 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



153 



before they have a notion of equity, or of what is rightfully 
their own, or what is rightfully another's. The anger of ani- 
mals, too, is, in like manner, destitute of that moral ingredient, 
which the definitions we have quoted suppose indispensable to 
the formation of it, and yet their emitted sounds have the 
very expression of fierceness, that we meet with so often 
among the fellows of our own species. The provocation, the 
resentment, the kindling glance of hostility, the gradual 
heightening of the wrath, its discharge in acts of mutual vio- 
lence, and lastly, its glutted satisfaction in the flight and even 
the death of the adversary — these are all indicative of kindred 
workings within, that have their outward vent in a common 
and kindred physiognomy, between him who is styled the lord 
of the creation, and those beneath his feet, who are conceived 
to stand at a distance that scarcely admits of comparison in 
the phenomena of their nature. Even man, in the full growth 
of his rational and moral nature, will often experience the 
outbreakings of an anger merely physical ; as, to state one 
instance out of the many, may be witnessed in the anger 
wreaked by him on the inferior animals, when, all uncon- 
scious of injury to him, they enter upon his fields, or damage 
the fruit of his labours. The object of a just resentment 
towards others, is the purposed injustice of others towards 
us; and, so far from purposing the injustice, animals have 
not even the faculty of conceiving it. The moral considera- 
tion, then, does not enter as a constituent part into all 
resentment. It is rather a superadded quality which desig- 
nates a species of it. It is not the epithet which charac- 
terises all anger, but is limited to a certain kind of it. It 
may be as proper to say of one anger that it is just, and of 
another that justice or morality has had nothing to do with 
it — as it is to say of one blow by the hand that it has been 
rightfully awarded, and of another blow that such a moral 



154 ADAPTATIONS OP EXTERNAL NATUEE TO 



characteristic is wholly inapplicable. Morality may at times 
characterise both the mental feeling and the muscular per- 
formance ; but it should be as little identified with the one 
as with the other. And however much analysts may have 
succeeded on other occasions, in reducing to sameness what 
appeared to be separate constituents of our nature, certain 
it is, that anger cannot thus be regarded as a resulting 
manufacture from any of its higher principles. It forms a 
distinct and original part of our constitution, of which 
morality, whenever it exists and has the predominance, 
might take the direction, without being at all essential to 
the presence or operation of it. So far from this, it is no- 
where exhibited in greater vivacity and distinctness than by 
those creatures who possess but an animal, without so much 
as the germ or the rudest elements of a moral nature. 

8. Anger then is an emotion that may rage and tumul- 
tuate in a bosom into which one moral conception has never 
entered. For its excitement nothing more seems necessary 
than to thwart any desire however unreasonable, or to dis- 
appoint any one object which the heart may chance to be set 
upon. So far from a sense of justice being needful to origi- 
nate this emotion — it is the man who, utterly devoid of 
justice, would monopolize to himself all that lies within the 
visible horizon, who is most exposed to its visitations. He is 
the most vulnerable to wrath from every point of the vast 
circumference around him — who, conceiving the universe to 
be made for himself alone, is most insensible to the rights 
and interests of other men. It is in fact, because he is so 
unfurnished with the ideas of justice, that he is so unbridled 
in resentment. Justice views the world and all its interests 
as already partitioned among the various members of the 
human population, each occupying his own little domain : 
and, instead of permitting anger to expatiate at random over 



THE MOKAL CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 



155 



the universal face of things, justice would euro and overrule 
its ebullitions in the bosom of every individual, till a tres- 
pass was made within the limits of that territory which is 
.properly and peculiarly his own. In other words, it is the 
office of this virtue, not to inspire anger, but to draw land- 
marks and limitations around it ; and, so far from a high 
moral principle originating this propensity, it is but an 
animal propensity, restrained and kept within check and 
confinement at the bidding of principle. 

9. The distinction between reflective and unreflective 
anger did not escape the notice of the sagacious Butler, as 
may be seen in the following passages of a sermon upon re- 
sentment. — "Besentmentis of two kinds — hasty and sudden, 
or settled and deliberate. The former is called anger and 
often passion, which, though a general word, is frequently 
appropriated and confined to the particular feeling, sudden 
anger, as distinct from deliberate resentment, malice and 
revenge.' ' " Sudden anger upon certain occasions is mere 
instinct, as merely so, as the disposition to close our eyes 
upon the apprehension of something falling into them, and 
no more necessarily implies any degree of reason. I say 
necessarily, for, to be sure, hasty as well as deliberate anger, 
may be occasioned by injury or contempt ; in which cases 
reason suggests to our thonghts the injury and contempt 
which is the occasion of the emotion : But I am speaking of 
the former, only in so far as it is to be distinguished from 
the latter. The only way in which our reason and under- 
standing can raise anger, is by representing to our mind an 
injustice or injury of some kind or other. Now momentary 
anger is frequently raised, not only without any rule, but 
without any reason ; that is, without any appearance of 
injury as distinct from hurt or pain. It cannot, I suppose, 
be thought that this passion in infants and the lower species 



156 ADAPTATIONS 03? EXTERNAL NATURE TO 



of animals, and which is often seen in man towards them, it 
cannot, I say, be imagined that these instances of this emo- 
tion are the effect of reason : no, they are occasioned by 
mere sensation and feeling. It is opposition, sudden hurt, 
violence, which naturally excites this passion ; and the real 
demerit or fault of him who offers that violence, or is the 
cause of that opposition or hurt, does not in many cases so 
much as come into thought." " The reason and end for 
which man was made thus liable to this emotion, is that he 
might be better qualified to prevent, and likewise or perhaps 
chiefly to resist and defeat sudden force, violence, and oppo- 
sition, considered merely as such, and without regard to the 
fault or demerit of him who is the author of them ; yet, since 
violence may be considered in this other and further view, as 
implying fault, and since injury as distinct from harm may 
raise sudden anger, sudden anger may likewise accidentally 
serve to prevent or remedy such fault and injury. But, con- 
sidered as distinct from settled anger, it stands in our nature 
for self-defence, and not for the administration of justice. 
There are plainly cases, and in the uncultivated parts of the 
world, and where regular governments are not formed, they 
frequently happen, in which there is no time for considering, 
and yet to be passive is certain destruction, in which sudden 
resistance is the only security." — It is an exceeding good 
instance that Bishop Butler gives of the distinction between 
instinctive and what may be called rational anger, when he 
specifies the anger that we often feel towards the inferior 
animals. There is properly no injury done where there is 
no injury intended. And he who is incapable of conceiving 
what an injury is, is not a rightful object for at least any 
moral resentment. But that there is what may be called a 
physical as well as a moral resentment, is quite palpable 
from the positive wrath which is felt when any thing unto- 



THE MOHAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



157 



ward or hurtful is done to us even by the irrational creatures. 
The men who use them as instruments of service often dis- 
charge the most outrageous wrath upon them — acting the 
part of ferocious tyrants towards these wretched victims of 
their cruelty. When a combat takes place between man and 
one of the inferior animals, there is a resentment felt by the 
former just as keen and persevering, as if it were between two 
human combatants. This makes it quite obvious that there 
may be anger without any sense of designed injury on the 
part of him who is the object of it. Even children, idiots, 
lunatics, might all be the objects of such a resentment. 

10. The final cause of this emotion in the inferior animals 
is abundantly obvious. It stimulates and ensures resistance 
to that violence which, if not resisted, would often terminate 
in the destruction of its object. And it probably much 
oftener serves the purpose of prevention than of defence, 
the first demonstration of a violence to be offered on the 
one hand, when met by the preparation and the counter- 
menace of an incipient resentment on the other, not only 
repels the aggression after it has begun, but still more fre- 
quently, we believe, through the reaction and restraint of 
fear on the otherwise attacking party, prevents the aggression 
from being made. The stout and formidable antagonists eye 
each other with a sort of natural respect ; and, as if by a 
common though tacit consent, wisely abstain on either side 
from molestation, and pass onward without a quarrel. It is 
thus that many a fierce contest is forborne, which, but for 
the operation of anger on the one side and fear upon the 
other, would most certainly have been entered upon. And 
so, by a system or machinery of reciprocal checks and coun- 
teractives, and where the mental affections too perform the 
part of essential forces, there is not that incessant warfare 
of extermination which might have depopulated the world. 



158 ADAPTATIONS 03? EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

And here we might observe, that, in studying that balance 
of powers and of preserving influences, which obtains even 
in a commonwealth of brutes, the uses of a mental are just 
as palpable as those of a material collocation. The anger 
which prompts to the resistance of aggression is as obviously 
inserted by the hand of a contriver, as are the horns or the 
bristles, or any other defensive weapons wherewith the body 
of the animal is furnished. The fear which wings the flight 
of a pursued animal is as obviously intended for its safety, 
as is its muscular conformation or capacity for speed. The 
affection of a mother for her young points as intelligibly to 
a Designer's care for the preservation of the species, as does 
that apparatus of nourishment wherewith nature hath en- 
dowed her. The mother's fondness supplies as distinct and 
powerful an argument as the mother's milk — or, in other 
words, a mental constitution might, as well as a physical 
constitution, be pregnant with the indications of a Grod. 

11. But to return to the special affection of anger, with a 
reference more particularly to its workings in our own 
species, where we have the advantage of nearer and distincter 
observation. "We must be abundantly sensible of the pain 
which there is, not merely in the feeling of resentment, when 
it burns and festers within our own hearts, but also in being 
the object of another's resentment. They are not the effects 
only of his anger that we are afraid of : we are afraid of the 
anger itself, of but the looks and the words of angry violence, 
though we should be perfectly secure from all the deeds of 
violence. The simple displeasure of another is formidable, 
though no chastisement whatever should follow upon it. We 
are so constituted, that we tremble before the frown of an 
offended countenance, and perhaps as readily as we would 
under the menace of an uplifted arm ; and would often make 
as great a sacrifice to shun the moral discomfort of another's 



THE MOEAL CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 159 



wrath, as fco shun the physical infliction which his wrath 
might impel him to lay upon us. It is thus that where 
there is no strength for any physical infliction, still there 
may be a power of correction that amply makes up for it, in 
the rebuke of an indignant eye or an indignant voice. This 
goes far to repair the inequalities of muscular force among 
men ; and forms indeed a most important mound of defence 
against the effervescence and the outbreakings of brute 
violence in society. It is incalculable how much we owe to 
this influence for the peace and courteousness that obtain in 
every neighbourhood. The more patent view of anger is, 
that it is an instrument of defence against the aggressions 
of violence or injustice : and by which they are kept in 
check, from desolating, as they otherwise would, the face of 
society. But it not only operates as a corrective against the 
outrages that are actually made. It has a preventive opera- 
tion also ; and we are wholly unable to say in how far the 
dread of its forth-breaking, serves to soften and to subdue 
human intercourse into those many thousand decencies of 
mutual forbearance and complaisance, by which it is glad- 
dened and adorned. There is a recoil from anger in the 
heart of eveiy man when directed against himself; and many 
who would disdain to make one sacrifice by which to appease 
it, after it had thrown down the gauntlet of hostility, will in 
fact make one continued sacrifice of their tone and manner 
and habit, that it may not be awakened out of its slumbers. 
It were difficult to compute how much we are indebted, for 
the blandness and the amenity of human companionship, to 
the consciousness of so many sleeping fires, in readiness to 
blaze forth, at the touch or at the moment of any provocation 
being offered. "We doubt not, that in military and fashion- 
able, and indeed in all society, it acts as a powerful restraint 
on everything that is offensive. The domineering insolence 



160 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL MATURE TO 

of those who, with the instrument of anger too, would hold 
society in bondage, is most effectually arrested, when met by 
an anger which throws back the fear upon themselves, and 
so quiets and composes all their violence. It is thus that a 
balance is maintained, without which human society might 
go into utter derangement ; and without which too, even the 
animal creation might lose its stability, and disappear. And 
there is a kind of moral power in the anger itself, that is 
separate from the animal or the physical strength which it 
puts into operation ; and which invests with command, or 
at least provides with defensive armour, those who would 
otherwise be the most helpless of our species — so that 
decrepit age or feeble womanhood has by the mere rebuke of 
an angry countenance made the stoutest heart to tremble 
before them. It is a moral force, by which the inequalities 
of muscular force are repaired : and while, itself a firebrand 
and a destroyer, yet, by the very terror of its ravages, which 
it diffuses among all, were it to stalk abroad and at large 
over the world — does it contribute to uphold the pacific 
virtues among men. 

12. When the anger of one individual in a household is 
the terror of the rest, then that individual may become the 
little despot of the establishment ; and thus it is that often 
the feeblest of them all in muscular strength may wield a 
domestic tyranny by which the stoutest is overpowered. 
But when the anger of this one is fortunately met by the 
spirit and resolution of another, then, kept at bay with its 
own weapon, it is neutralized into a state of innocence. It 
is not necessary for the production of this effect, that the 
parties ever should have come to the extremity of an open 
and declared violence. If there be only a mutual conscious- 
ness of each other's energy of passion and of purpose, then 
a mutual awe and mutual forbearance may be the result of it. 



THE MOEAIi CONSTITUTION OF HAN. 161 

JLnd thus it is, that, by the operation of these reciprocal 
checks in a family, the peace and order of it may be securely 
upholden. We have witnessed how much a wayward and 
outrageous temper has been sweetened, by the very presence, 
in the same mansion, of one who could speak again, and 
would not succumb to any unreasonable violence. The 
violence is abated. And we cannot compute how much it is 
that the blandness and the mutual complaisance which 
obtain in society, are due to the secret dread in which men 
stand of each other's irritation ; or, in other words, little 
do we know to what extent the smile and the courteousness 
and the urbanity of civilized life, that are in semblance so 
many expressions of human benevolence, may, really and sub- 
stantially, be owing to the fears of human selfishness. Were 
this speculation pursued, it might lead to a very humiliating 
estimate indeed of the virtue of individuals — though we can- 
not but admire the wisdom of that economy, by which, even 
without virtue, individuals maybe made, through the mutual 
action and reaction of their emotions, to form the materials 
of a society that can stand. Anger does in private life, what 
the terrors of the penal code do in the community at large. 
It acts with salutary influence in a vast multiplicity of 
€ases, which no law could possibly provide for ; and where 
the chastisements of law, whether in their corrective or pre- 
ventive influence cannot reach. The good of a penal disci- 
pline in society extends far and wide beyond the degree in 
which it is actually inflicted ; and many are the pacific 
habits of a neighbourhood, that might be ascribed, not to 
the pacific virtues of the men who compose it, but to the 
terror of those consequences which all men know would 
ensue upon their violation. And it is just so of anger, in the 
more frequent and retired intercourse of private life. The 
good which it does by the fear of its ebullitions is greater far 

31 



162 ADAPTATIONS OE EXTEENAL NAT U EE TO 

than all which is done by the actual ebullitions themselves; 
But we cannot fail to perceive that the amount of service 
which is done in this way to the species at large, must all be, 
regarded as a deduction from the amount of credit which is 
due to the individuals who belong to it. We have already 
remarked on the propensity of moralists to accredit the 
wisdom of man with effects, which, as being provided for not 
by any care or reflection of ours, but by the operation of 
constitutional instincts — are more properly and immediately 
to be ascribed to the wisdom of God. And in like manner, 
there is a propensity in moralists to accredit the wisdom of 
man with effects, which, as being provided for not by any 
consciousness or exercise of principle on our part, but by 
the operation still of constitutional instincts — are more 
properly and immediately to be ascribed to the goodness 
of God.* 

* The following extract from Brown tends well to illustrate one of the 
final causes for the implantation of this principle in our constitution:-— 
" What human wants required, that all- foreseeing- Power, who is the 
guardian of our infirmities, has supplied to human weakness. There is a 
principle in our mind, which is to us like a constant protector, which may 
slumber, indeed, but which slumbers only at seasons when its vigilance 
would be useless ; which awakes, therefore, at the first appearance of un- 
just intention, and which becomes more watchful and more vigorous in 
proportion to the violence of the attack which it has to dread. Wha 
should we think of the providence of nature, if, when aggression was 
threatened against the weak and unarmed, at a distance from the aid of 
others, there were instantly and uniformly, by the intervention of some 
wonder-working power, to rush into the hand of the defenceless a sword or 
other weapon of defence ! And yet this would be but a feeble assistance, 
if compared with that which we receive from the simple emotions which 
Heaven has caused to rush, as it were, into our mind for repelling every 
attack. What would be a sword in the trembling hand of the infirm, of 
the aged, — of him whose pusillanimous spirit shrinks at the very appear- 
ance, not of danger merely, but even of the arms by the use of which 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 163 



13. There is another special affection which we feel more 
particularly induced to notice, from its palpable effect in re- 
straining the excess of one of nature's strongest appetites. 
Its position in the mental system reminds one of the very 
obvious adaptation to each other of the antagonist muscles 
in anatomy. "We allude to the operation of shame between 
the sexes, considered as a check or counteractiye to the in- 
dulgence of passion between the sexes. The former is as 
clear an instance of moral, as the latter is of physical adapta- 
tion. And in their adjustment the one to the other, we 
obserye that sort of exquisite balancing, which, perhaps more 
than any thing else, indicates the wisdom and the hand of a 
master — as if when, in the execution of some very nice and 
difficult task, he is managing between contrary extremes, or 
is deyising in just proportion for contrary interests. We 
might better comprehend the design of this strikingly pecu- 
liar mechanism, by imagining of the two opposite instincts, 
that either of them was in excess, or either of them in de- 
fect. Did the constitutional modesty prevail to a certain 
conceivable extent — it might depopulate the world. Did the 
animal propensity preponderate, on the other hand — it might 
land the world in an anarchy of unblushing and universal 
licentiousness — to the entire breaking up of our present 
blissful economy, by which society is partitioned into sepa- 

danger might be averted ; and to whom, consequently, the very sword, 
which he scarcely knew how to grasp, would be an additional cause of 
terror, not an instrument of defence and safety ? The instant anger which 
arises does more than many such weapons. It gives the spirit, which 
knows how to make a weapon of every thing, or which of itself does, with- 
out a weapon, what even a thunderbolt would be powerless to do, in the 
shuddering grasp of the coward. When anger arises, fear is gone; there 
is no coward, for all are brave. Even bodily infirmity seems to yield to it, 
like the very infirmities of the mind. The old are, for the moment, young 
again; the weakest, vigorous."— Lecture \xiii. 



164 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

rate families ; and, with the interests of domestic life to pro- 
vide for, and its affections continually to recreate the heart 
in the midst of anxieties and labours, mankind are kept in a 
state both of most useful activity and of greatest enjoyment. 
¥e cannot conceive a more skilful, we had almost said a 
more delicate or dexterous adjustment, than the one actually 
fixed upon — by which, in the first instance, through an appe- 
tency sufficiently strong the species is upholden ; and, in the 
second instance, through the same appetency sufficiently 
restrained, those hallowed decencies of life are kept inviolate, 
which are so indispensable to all order and to all moral 
gracefulness among men. We have only to conceive the 
frightful aspect which society would put on, did unbridled 
licentiousness stalk at large as a destroyer, and rifle every 
home of those virtues which at once guard and adorn it. The 
actual and the beautiful result, when viewed in connection 
with that moral force, by the insertion of which in our 
nature it is accomplished, strongly bespeaks a presiding in- 
tellect — which, in framing the mechanism of the human 
mind, had respect to what was most beneficent and best for 
the mechanism of human society. 

14. It is well that man is so much the creature of a con- 
stitution which is anterior to his own wisdom and his own 
will, and of circumstances which are also anterior to his 
wisdom and his will. It would have needed a far more com- 
prehensive view than we are equal to, both of what was best 
for men in a community, and for man as an individual, to 
have left a creature so shortsighted or of such brief and 
narrow survey, with the fixing either of his own principles 
of action, or of his relation with the external world. That 
constitutional shame, that quick and trembling delicacy, a 
prompt and' ever-present guardian, appearing as it does in 
very early childhood, is most assuredly not a result from 



THE MOBAL COXSTITTTION OP MA2s\ 165 

any anticipation by us either of future or distant conse- 
quences. Even the moral sense within us does not speak so 
loudly or so distinctly the evil of this transgression, as it 
does of falsehood, or of injurious freedom with the property 
of a neighbour, or of personal violence. Other forces than 
those of human prudence or human principle seem to have 
been necessary, for resisting a most powerful and destructive 
fascination, which never is indulged, without deterioration to 
the whole structure of the moral character and constitution ; 
and which, when once permitted to lord it over the habits, so 
often terminates in the cruel disruption of families, and the 
irretrievable ruin and disgrace of the offender. It is not by 
any prospective calculation of ours that this natural modesty, 
acting as a strong precautionary check against evils which, 
however tremendous, we are too heedless to reflect upon, has 
been established within us. It is directly implanted by 
One who sees the end from the beginning ; and so forms 
altogether a most palpable instance, in which we have reason 
to congratulate ourselves, that the wellbeing of man, instead 
of being abandoned to himself, has been placed so imme- 
diately under the management of better and higher hands. 

15. There are many other special affections in our nature 
— the principal of which will fall to be noticed in succeeding 
chapters ; and the interests to which they are respectivelv 
subservient form a natural ground of division, in our treat- 
ment of them. Certain of these affections stand related to 
the civil, and certain of them to the economic wellbeing of 
society ; and each of these subserviencies will form the sub- 
ject of a separate argument. 



166 



CHAPTEB VI. 

On those special Affections which conduce to the Civil and 
Political Wellbeing of Society. 

T. The first step towards tlie aggregation of men into a 
community, or the first departure from a state of perfect 
isolation, could that state ever have subsisted for a single 
day, is the patriarchal arrangement. No sooner indeed is 
the infant creature ushered into being, than it is met by the 
cares and the caresses of those who are around it, and who 
have either attended or welcomed its entry on this scene of 
existence— as if, in very proportion to the extremity of 
its utter helplessness, was the strength of that security which 
nature hath provided, in the workings of the human constitu- 
tion, for the protection of its weakness and the supply of all 
its little wants. That there should be hands to receive and to 
manage this tender visitant, is not more obviously a benevo- 
lent adaptation, than that there should be hearts to sympa- 
thise with its cries of impotency or distress. The maternal 
affection is as express an instance of this as the maternal 
nourishment — nor is the inference at all weakened, by the 
attempts, even though they should be successful, of those 
who would demonstrate of this universal fondness of mothers, 
that, instead of an original instinct, it is but a derived or se- 
condary law of our nature. Were that analysis as distinct 
and satisfactory as it is doubtful and obscure, which would 
resolve all mental phenomena into the single principle of 
association — still the argument would stand. A secondary 
law, if not the evidence of a distinct principle, requires at 
least distinct and peculiar circumstances for its development; 
and the right ordering of these for a beneficial result, is just 



THE WELLBEI^G 0E SOCIETY. 



as decisively the proof and the characteristic of a plan, as are 
the collocations of anatomy. It might not have been 
necessary to endow matter with any new property for the 
preparation of a child's aliment in the breast of its mother — 
yet the framework of that very peculiar apparatus by which 
the milk is secreted, and the suckling's mouth provided with a 
duct of conveyance for the abstraction of fe it, is, in the many 
fitnesses of time and place and complicated arrangement, 
pregnant with the evidence of a Designer's contrivance and 
a Designer's care. And in like manner, though it should be 
established, that the affection of a mother for her young from 
the moment of their birth, instead of an independent principle 
in her nature, was the dependent product of remembrances 
and feelings which had accumulated during the period of 
gestation, and were at length fixed, amidst the agonies of 
parturition, into the strongest of all her earthly regards — the 
argument for design is just as entire, though, instead of con- 
necting it with the peculiarity of an original law, we connect 
t with the peculiarity of those circumstances which favour 
the development of this maternal feeling, in the form of a 
secondary law. There is an affinity of conceivable methods, 
by which the successive generations of men might have risen 
into being ; and our argument is entire, if, out of these, that 
method has been selected, whereof the result is an intense 
affection on the part of mothers for their offspring. It mat- 
ters not whether this universal propensity of theirs be a 
primary instinct of nature, or but a resulting habit which can 
be traced to the process which they have been actually made 
to undergo, or the circumstances in which they have actually 
been placed. The ordination of this process, the mandate 
for the assemblage and collocation of these .circumstances, 
gives as distinct and decisive indication of an ordaining mind, 
as . wuld the establishment of any peculiar law. Lat it suf- 



168 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



fice once for all to have said this — for if in the prosecution 
of our inquiry, we stopped at every turn to entertain the 
question, whether each beneficial tendency on which we 
reasoned, were an original or only a secondary principle in 
nature — we should be constantly rushing uncalled into the 
mists of obscurity ; and fastening upon our cause an element 
of doubt and weakness, which in nowise belongs to it. 

2. The other affections which enter into the composition, 
or rather, form the cement of a family, are more obviously 
of a derivative, and less obviously of an instinctive character, 
than is that strong maternal affinity which meets so oppor- 
tunely with the extreme helplessness of its objects, that but 
for the succour and sympathy of those whose delight it is to 
cherish and sustain them, would perish in the infancy of their 
being. However questionable the analysis might be, which 
would resolve the universal fondness of mothers for their 
young into something anterior — the paternal and brotherly 
and filial affections seem, on surer grounds, and which are 
accessible to observation, not to be original but originated 
feelings. Inquirers, according to their respective tastes and 
tendencies, have deviated on both sides of the evidence — 
that is, either to a excessive and hypothetic simplification of 
nature, or to an undue multiplication of her first principles. 
And certain it is, that when told of the mystic ties which 
bind together into a domestic community, as if by a sort of 
certain peculiar attraction, all of the same kindred and the 
same blood — we are reminded of those occult qualities, which, 
in the physics both of matter and of mind, afforded so much 
of entertainment to the scholastics of a former age. But 
with the adjustment of this philosophy we properly have no 
concern. It matters not to our argument whether the result 
in question be due to the force of instincts or to the force of 
circumstances, — any more than whether, in the physical 



THE WELLBEnsG OF SOCIETY. 



169 



system, a certain beneficial result may be ascribed to apt and 
peculiar laws, or to apt and peculiar collocations. In virtue 
of one or other of both of these causes, we behold the indi- 
viduals of the species grouped together — or, as it may be 
otherwise expressed, the aggregate mass of the species broken 
asunder into distinct families, and generally living by them- 
selves, each family under one common roof, but apart from 
all the rest in distinct habitations ; while the members of 
every little commonwealth are so linked by certain affections, 
or by certain feelings of reciprocal obligation, that each 
member feels almost as intensely for the wants and suf- 
ferings of the rest as he would for his own, or labours as 
strenuously for the sustenance of all as he would for his own 
individual sustenance. There is very generally a union of 
hearts, and still oftener a union of hands, for the common 
interest and provision of the household. 

3. The benefits of such an arrangement are too obvious to 
be enumerated. Even though the law of self-preservation 
had sufficed in those cases where the individual has adequate 
wisdom to devise, and adequate strength to provide for his own 
maintenance— of itself, it could not have availed, when this 
strength and this wisdom are wanting. It is in the bosom of 
families, and under the touch and impulse of family affections, 
that helpless infancy is nurtured into manhood, and helpless 
disease or age have the kindliest and most effective succour 
afforded to them. Even when the strength for labour, instead 
of being confined to one, is shared among several of the house- 
hold, there is often an incalculable benefit, in the very concert 
of their forces and community of their gains— so long, for 
example as a brotherhood, yet advancing towards maturity, 
continue to live under the same roof, anr' to live under the 
direction of one authority, or by the movement of one will. We 
shall not expatiate, either on the enjoyment that might be had 
under such an economy, while it lasts, in the sweets of mutual 



170 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



affection : or minutely explain how, after the economy is 
dissolved, and the separate members betake themselves each 
to his own way in the world — the duties and the friendships 
of domestic life are not annihilated by this dispersion ; but, 
under the powerful influence of a felt and acknowledged 
relationship, the affinities of kindred spread and multiply 
beyond their original precincts, to the vast increase of mutual 
sympathy and aid and good offices in general society. It 
will not, we suppose, be questioned — that a vastly greater 
amount of good is done by the instrumentality of others, and 
that the instrumentality itself is greatly more available 
xmder the family system, to which we are prompted by the 
strong affections of nature, than if that system were dissolved. 
But the remarkable thing is, that these affections had to be 
provided, as so many impellent forces — guiding men onward 
to an arrangement the most prolific of advantage for the 
whole, but which no care or consideration of the general 
good would have led them to form. This provision for the 
wants of the social economy is analogous to that, which we 
have already observed, for the wants of the animal economy. 
-Neither of these interests was confided to any cold gene- 
rality, whether of principle or prudence. In the one, the 
strong appetite of hunger supplements the deficiency of the 
rational principle of self-preservation. In the other, the 
strong family affections supplement the deficiency of the 
moral principle of general benevolence. "Without the first, 
the requisite measures would not have been taken; for the 
regular sustenance of the individual. Without the other, 
the requisite measures would not have been taken for the 
-diffused sustenance of the community at large. 

4. Such is the mechanism of human society, as it comes 
direct from the hand of nature or of nature's God. But 
many have been the attempts of human wisdom to mend and 
to meddle with it. Cosmopolitism, in particular, has endear 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



171 



voured to substitute a sort of universal citizenship, in place 
of the family affections— regarding these as so many dis- 
turbing forces ; because operating only as incentives to a 
partial or particular benevolence, they divert the aim from 
that which should, it is contended, be the object of every 
enlightened philanthropist, the general and greatest good of 
the whole. It is thus that certain transcendental specula- 
tists would cut asunder all the special affinities of our nature, 
in order that men, set at large from the ties and the duties 
of the domestic relationship, might be at liberty to prosecute 
a more magnificent and godlike career of virtue ; and, in 
every single action, have respect, not to the wellbeing of 
the individual, but to the wellbeing of the species. And 
thus, also, friendship and patriotism have been stigmatized, 
along with the family affections, as so many narrow-minded 
virtues, which, by their distracting influence, seduce men 
from that all-comprehensive virtue, whose constant study 
being the good of the world —a happy and regenerated world, 
it is the fond imagination of some, would be the result of 
its universal prevalence among men. 

5, Fortunately, nature is too strong for this speculation, 
which, therefore, has only its full being in the reveries or the 
pages of those who, in authorship, may well be termed the 
philosophical novelists of our race. But, beside the actual 
strength of those special propensities in the heart of man, 
which no generalization can overrule, there is an utter im- 
uotency in human means or human expedients for carrying 
this hollow, this heartless generalization into effect. It is 
easy to erect into a moral axiom the principle of greatest 
happiness ; and then, on the strength of it, to denounce all 
the special affections, and propose the substitution of a 
universal affection in their place. But, in prosecuting the 
■object of this last affection, what specific and intelligible 



172 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



thing are they to do ? How shall they go about it ? "What 
conventional scheme shall men fall upon next for obtaining 
the maximum of utility, after they have broken loose, each 
from his own little home, and have been emancipated from 
those intense regards which worked so effectively and with 
such force of concentration there ? It has never been clearly 
shewn, how the glorious simplifications of these cosmopolites 
admit of being practically realized — whether by a combina- 
tion, of which the chance is that all men might not agree 
upon it ; or by each issuing quixotically forth of his own 
habitation, and labouring the best he may to realize the 
splendid conception by which he is fired and actuated. And 
it does not occur to those who would thus labour to extir- 
pate the special affections from our nature, that it is in the 
indulgence of them that all couceivable happiness lies ; and 
that, in being bereft of them, we should be in truth bereft of 
all the means and materials of enjoyment. And there is the 
utmost difference in point of effect, as well as in point of 
feeling, between the strong love wherewith nature hath 
endued us for a few particular men, and the general love 
wherewith philosophers would inspire us for men in the 
abstract — the former philanthropy leading to a devoted and 
sustained habit of well-directed exertion, for supplying the 
wants and multiplying the enjoyments of every separate 
household: the latter philanthropy, at once indefinite in 
its aim, and intangible in its objects, overlooking every man 
just because charging itself with the oversight of all men. 
It is by a summation of particular utilities which each man, 
under his own particular affections, contributes to the general 
good, that nature provides for the happiness of the world. 
But ambitious and aspiring man would take the charge of 
this happiness upon himself; and his first step would be to 
rid the heart of all its special affections — or in other words, 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



173 



to unsettle the moral dynamics which nature hath estab- 
lished there, without any other moral dynamics, either of 
precise direction or of operative force, to establish in their 
room. After having paralyzed all the ordinary principles of 
action, he would, in his newly modelled system of humanity, 
be able to set up no principle of action whatever. His 
wisdom, when thus opposed to the wisdom of nature, is 
utterly powerless to direct, however much, in those seasons 
of delusion when the merest nonentities and names find a 
temporary sway, it may be powerful to destroy. 

6. Now, there is nothing which so sets off the superior 
*kill of one artist, as the utter failure of every other artist in 
his attempts to improve upon it. And so the failure of every 
philanthropic or political experiment which proceeds on the 
distrust of nature's strong and urgent and general affections, 
may be regarded as an impressive while experimental demon- 
stration for the matchless wisdom of nature's God. The 
abortive enterprises of wild yet benevolent Utopianism ; the 
impotent and hurtful schemes of artificial charity which so 
teem throughout the cities and parishes of our land ; the 
pernicious legislation, which mars instead of medicates, 
whenever it intermeddles with the operations of a previous 
and better mechanism than its own — have all of them mis- 
given, only because, instead of conforming to nature, they 
have tried to divert her from her courses, or have thwarted 
and traversed the strongest of her implanted tendencies. It 
is thus that every attempt for taking to pieces, whether 
totally or partially, the actual framework of society, and 
reconstructing it in a new way or on new principles — is 
altogether fruitless of good ; and often fruitful of sorest evil 
both to the happiness and virtue of the commonwealth. 
That economy by which the family system would have been 
entirely broken up ; and associated men, living together in 



174 



AFFECTIONS WHICH C01STDTJCE TO 



planned and regulated villages, would have laboured for the 
common good, and given up their children wholly undomes- 
ticated to a common education — could not have been carried 
into effect, without overbearing the parental affection, and 
other strong propensities, of nature besides ; and so it was 
stifled in embryo, by the instant revolt of nature against it. 
That legislation which, instead of overbearing, would but se- 
duce nature from her principles, may subsist for generations 
—yet not without such distemper to society, as may at length 
amount to utter disorganization. And this is precisely the 
mischief which the pauperism of England hath inflicted on 
the habits of English families. It hath, by the most pernici- 
ous of all bribery, relaxed the ties and obligations of mutual 
relationship — exonerating parents, on the one hand, from the 
care and maintenance of their own offspring ; and tempting 
children, on the other, to cast off the parents who gave them 
birth ; and, instead of an asylum gladdened by the associa- 
tions and sympathies of home, consigning them for the last 
closing years of weakness and decrepitude to the dreary im- 
prisonment of a poor-house. H ad the beautiful arrangements 
of nature not been disturbed, the relative affections which she 
herself has implanted would have been found strong enough, 
as in other countries, to have secured, through the means of 
a domestic economy alone, a provision both for young and 
old, in far greater unison with both the comfort and the 
virtue of families. The corrupt and demoralizing system of 
England might well serve as a lesson to philanthropists and 
statesmen, of the hazard, nay, of the positive and undoubted 
mischief, to which the best interests of humanity are exposed 
—when they traverse the processes of a better mechanism 
instituted by the wisdom of Grod, through the operation of 
another mechanism devised by a wisdom of their own. 
7. And those family relations in which all men necessarily 



THE WELLBEING OE SOCIETY. 



175 



find themselves at the outset of life serve to strengthen, if 
they do not originate, certain other subsequent affections of 
wider operation, and which bear with most important effect 
on the state and security of a commonwealth. Each man's, 
house may be regarded as a preparatory school, where he 
acquires in boyhood those habits of subordination and de-, 
pendence and reverence for superiors, by which he all the 
more readily conforms in after-life to the useful gradations 
of rank and authority and wealth, which obtained in the 
order of general society. We are aware of a cosmopolitism 
that would unsettle those principles which bind together 
the larger commonwealth of a state ; and that too with still 
greater force and frequency, than it would unsettle those 
affections which bind together the little commonwealth of a 
family. It is easier to undermine in the hearts of subjects 
their reverence for rank and station, then it is to dissolve 
the ties of parentage and brotherhood, or to denaturalize the 
hearts of children. Accordingly, we may remember those 
seasons, when, in the form of what may be termed a moral 
epidemic, a certain spirit of lawlessness went abroad upon 
the land ; and the minds of men were set at large from the 
habit of that homage and respect which, in more pacific times, 
they, without pusillanimity, and in spite of themselves, do 
render to family or fortune or office in society. "We know 
that in specific instances an adequate cause is too often 
given, why men should cast off that veneration for rank by 
which they are naturally and habitually actuated — as, indi- 
vidually, when the prince or the noble, however elevated, 
may have disgraced himself by his tyranny or his vices ; or, 
generally, when the patrician orders of the state may have 
entered into some guilty combination of force and fraud 
against the liberties of mankind, and outraged nature is 
called forth to a generous and wholesome reaction against 



176 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



the oppressors of their species. This is the revolt of one 
natural principle against the abuse of another. But the case 
is very different — when, instead of an hostility resting on prac- 
tical grounds, and justified by the abuses of a principle, there 
is a sort of theoretical, yet withal virulent and inflamed 
hostility abroad in the land against the principle itself — 
when wealth and rank, without having abused their privi- 
leges, are made per se the objects of a jealous and resentful 
malignity — when the people all reckless and agog, because 
the dupes of designing and industrious agitators, have been 
led to regard every man of affluence or station as their 
natural enemy — and when, with, the bulk of the community 
in this attitude of stout and sullen defiance, authority is 
weakened, and all the natural influences of rank and wealth 
are suspended. Now, nature never gives more effectual de- 
monstration of her wisdom than by the mischief which en- 
sues on the abjuration of her own principles ; and never is 
the lesson thus held forth more palpable and convincing, 
then when respect for station and respect for office cease to 
be operating principles of society. "We are abundantly sen- 
sible that both mighty possessions and the honours of an in- 
dustrious ancestry may be disjoined from individual talent 
and character — nay, that they may meet in the person of one 
so utterly weak or worthless, as that our reverence, because of 
the adventitious circumstances in which he is placed, may be 
completely overborne by our contempt either for the im- 
becility or the moral turpitude by which he is deformed. 
But this is only the example of a contest between two princi- 
ples, and of a victory by the superior over the inferior one. 
We are not, however, because of the inferiority of a prin- 
ciple, to lose sight of its existence ; or to betray such an im- 
perfect discernment and analysis of the human mind, as to 
deny the reality of any one principle, because liable to be 



THE WELLBEINGr OE SOCIETY. 



177 



modified or kept in check, or even for the time rendered 
altogether powerless, by the interposition and the conflict of 
another principle. If, on the one hand, rank may be so 
disjoined from righteousness as to forfeit all its claims to 
respect — on the other hand, to be convinced that these 
claims are the objects of a natural and universal acknow- 
ledgment, and have therefore a foundation in the actual con- 
stitution of human nature, let us only consider the effect, 
when pre-eminent rank and pre-eminent or even but fair and 
ordinary righteousness, meet together in the person of the 
same individual. The effect of such a composition upon 
human feelings may well persuade us that, while a respect 
for righteousness, admitted by all, enters as one ingredient, 
a respect for rank has its distinct and substantive being also 
as another ingredient. "We have the former ingredient by 
itself in a state of separation, and are therefore most sensible 
of its presence, when the object of contemplation is a virtuous 
man. But we are distinctly sensible to the superaddition 
of the latter ingredient, when, instead of a virtuous man, 
the object of contemplation is a virtuous monarch — though 
it becomes more palpable still, when it too is made to exist 
in a state of separation, which it does, when the'monarch is 
neither hateful for his vices, nor very estimable for his vir- 
tues ; but stands forth in the average possession of those 
moralities and of that intellect which belong to common 
and every-day humanity. Even such a monarch has only to 
appear among his subjects ; and, in all ordinary times, he will 
be received with the greetings of an honest and heart-felt 
loyalty, while any unwonted progress through his dominions 
is sure to be met with all over the land, by the acclamations 
of a generous enthusiasm. Even the sturdiest demagogue,if he 
come within the sphere of the royal presence, cannot resist the 
infection of that common sentiment by which all are actuated; 

2s" 



178 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



but, as if struck with a moral impoteney, he also, carried 
away by the fascination, is constrained to feel and to ac- 
knowledge its influence. Some there are, who might affect to 
despise human nature for such an exhibition, and indignantly 
exclaim that men are born to be slaves. But the truth is, 
that there is nothing prostrate, nothing pusillanimous in the 
emotion at all. Instead of this, it is a lofty chivalrous emo- 
tion, of which the most exalted spirits are the most suscep- 
tible, and which all might indulge without any forfeiture of 
their native or becoming dignity. We do not affirm of this 
respect either for the sovereignty of an empire, or for the 
chieftainship of a province— that it forms an original or con- 
stituent part of our nature. It is enough for our argument^ 
if it be a universal result of the circumstances in every land, 
where such gradations of power and property are established. 
In a word, it is the doing of nature, and not of man; and if 
man, in the proud and presumptuous exercise of his own 
wisdom, shall lift his rebel hand against the wisdom* of nature, 
and try to uproot this principle from human hearts— he will 
find that it cannot be accomplished without tearing asunder 
one of the strongest of those ligaments, which bind together 
the component parts of human society into an harmonious and 
well-adjusted mechanism. And it is then that the wisdom 
which made nature will demonstrate its vast superiority over 
the wisdom which would mend it — when the desperate 
experiment of the latter had been tried and found wanting, 
There are certain restraining forces (and reverence for rank 
'and station is one of them) which never so convincingly 
announce their own importance to the peace and stability of 
the commonwealth, as in those seasons of popular frenzy, 
when, for a time, they are slackened or suspended. For it 
is then that the vessel of the state, as if slipped from her 
moorings, drifts headlong among the surges of insurrectionary 



THE WELLBEI>~a OE SOCIETY. 



179 



•violence, till, as the effect of this great national effervescence, 
the land mourns over its ravaged fields and desolated families ; 
when, after the sweeping anarchy has blown over it, and the 
sore chastisement has been undergone, the now schooled 
and humbled people seek refuge anew in those very principles 
which they had before traduced and discarded : and it will 
be fortunate if, when again settled down in the quietude of 
their much-needed and much-longed-for repose, there be not 
too vigorous a reaction of those conservative influences, which, 
in the moment of their wantonness, tbey had flung so reck- 
lessly away— in virtue of which the whips may become 
scorpions, and the mild and well-balanced monarchy may 
become a grinding despotism. 

S. Kelt to the wisdom which nature discovers in her im- 
plantation or development of those affections by which so- 
ciety is parcelled down into separate families, is the wisdom 
which she discovers in those other affections, by which the 
territory of a nation, and all upon it that admits of such a 
distribution, is likewise parcelled and broken off into separate 
properties. Both among the analysis of the human mind, 
and among metaphysical jurists and politicians there is to be 
found much obscure and unsatisfactory speculation respecting 
those principles, whether elementary or complex, by which 
property is originated, and by which property is upholden. 
'We are not called to enter upon any subtile analysis for the 
•purpose of ascertaining either what that is which gives birth 
to the possessory feeling on the part of an owner, or what 
that is which leads to such a universal recognition and re- 
spect for his rights in general society. It will be enough if 
we can evince that neither of these is a factitious product, 
devised by the wisdom or engendered by the authority of 
patriots and legislators, deliberating on what was best for the 
good and order of a community ; but that both of them are 



180 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



the results of a prior wisdom, employed, not in framing a 
constitution for an estate, but in framing a constitution 
for human nature. It will suffice to demonstrate this 
if we can shew, that, in very early childhood there are 
germinated both a sense of property and a respect for 
the property of others ; and that, long before the children 
have been made the subjects of any artificial training on the 
thing in question, or are at all capable of any anticipation, 
or even wish, respecting the public and collective wellbeing 
of the country at large. Just as the affection of a mother 
is altogether special, and terminates upon the infant, with- 
out any calculation as to the superiority of the family systems 
of the cosmopolites ; and just as the appetite of hunger im- 
pels to the use of food, without the least regard, for the time 
being, to the support or preservation of the animal economy; 
— so, most assuredly, do the desires or notions of property, 
and even the principles by which it is limited, spring up in 
the breasts of children, without the slightest apprehension, 
on their part, of its vast importance to the social economy 
of the world. It is the provision, not of man, but of God. 

9. That is my property, to the use and enjoyment of 
which I, without the permission of others, am free, in a 
manner that no other is ; and it is mine and mine only, in 
as far as this use and enjoyment are limited to myself — and 
others, apart from any grant or permission by me, are re- 
strained from the like use and the like enjoyment. !Now ? 
the first tendency of a child, instead of regarding only certain 
things, as those to the use and enjoyment of which it 
alone is free, is to regard itself as alike free to the 
use and enjoyment of all things. We should say that 
it regards the whole of external nature as a vast com- 
mon, but for this difference — that, instead of regarding 
nature as free to all, it rather regards it as free to itself 



THE WELLEELSG OF SOCIETY. 



181 



alone. "When others intermeddle with any one thing in a 
way that suits not its fancy or pleasure, it resents and storms 
and exclaims like one bereft of its rights — so that, instead of 
regarding the universe as a common, it were more accurate 
to say, that it regarded the whole as its own property, or 
itself as the universal proprietor of all on which it may have 
cast a pleased or a wishful eye. Whatever it grasps, it feels 
to be as much its own as it does the fingers which grasp it. 
And not only do its claims extend to all within its reach, but 
to all within the field of its vision — insomuch, that it will 
even stretch forth its hands to the moon in the firmament ; 
and wreak its displeasure on the nurse, for not bringing the 
splendid bauble within its grasp. Instead then of saying, 
that, at this particular stage, it knows not how to appropriate 
any thing, it were more accurate to say, that, a universal 
tyrant and monopolist, it would claim and appropriate all 
things —exacting from the whole of nature a subserviency to 
its caprices ; and, the little despot of its establishment, 
giving forth its intimations and its mandates, with the ex- 
pectation, and often with the real power and authority, of 
instant obedience. We before said that its anger was co- 
extensive with the capacity of sensation ; and we now say, 
that, whatever its rectified notion of property may be, it has 
the original notion of an unlimited range over which itself at 
least may expatiate, without let or contradiction — the self- 
constituted proprietor of a domain, wide as its desires, and 
on which none may interfere against its will, without awak- 
ening in its bosom somewhat like the sense and feeling of an 
injurious molestation.* 

* From what lias already been said of resentment, it would appear, that 
the instinctive feeling* of property and instinctive anger are in a state of co- 
relation with each other. It is by offence being- rendered to the former, that 
the latter is called forth. Anterior to a sense of justice, our disposition is 



182 



AEEECTIOlSrS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



& 10. And it is instructive to observe the process by which 
this original notion of property is at length rectified into the 
subsequent notion which obtains in general society. For 
this purpose we must inquire what the circumstances are 
which limit and determine that sense of property, which was 
quite general and unrestricted before, to certain special 
things, of which the child learns to feel that they are pecu- 
liarly its own — and that too, in a manner which distinguishes 
them from all other things which are not so felt to be its 
own. The child was blind to any such distinction before— i 
its first habit being to arrogate and monopolize all things. ; 
and the question is, what those circumstances are which serve- 
to signalize some things, to which its feelings of property,; 
now withdrawn from wide and boundless generality, are ex-» 
clusively and specifically directed. It will make conclusively 
for our argument, if it shall appear that this sense of pro- 
perty, even in its posterior and rectified form, is the work of 
nature, operating on the hearts of children ; and not > the 
work of man, devising, in the maturity of his political wis- 
dom, such a regulated system of things as might be best for 
the order and wellbeing of society. 

11. This matter then might be illustrated by the contests 
of very young children, and by the manner in which these 
are adjusted to the acquiescence and satisfaction of them all. 
"We might gather a lesson even from the quarrel which some* 

to arrogate every thing — and it is then that we are vulnerable to anger 
from all points of the compass. Let another meddle, to our annoyance, 
with anything whatever, at this early stage, and we shall feel the very 
emotion of anger which, in a higher stage of moral and mental cultivation, 
is only called forth by his meddling with that which really and rightfully 
belongs to us. The sense of justice, instead of originating either the emo- 
tion of anger or a sense of property, has the effect to limit and restrain 
both. 



THE WELL BEING OF SOCIETY. 



183 



times arises among them, about a matter so small as their 
right to the particular chairs of a room,. If one, for example, 
have just sat on a chair, though only for a few minutes, and 
then left it for a moment — it will feel itself injured, if, on 
returning, it shall find the chair in the possession of another 
occupier. The brief occupation which it has already had, 
gives it the feeling of a right to the continued occupation of 
it — insomuch that, when kept out by an intruder, it has the- 
sense of having been wrongously dispossessed. The particu- 
lar chair of which it was for some time the occupier, is the 
object of a special possessory affection or feeling, which it 
attaches to no other chair ; and by which it stands invested 
in its own imagination, as being for the time the only right- 
ful occupier. This then may be regarded as a very early 
indication of that possessory feeling, which is afterwards of 
such extensive influence in the economy of social life— a 
feeling so strong, as often of itself to constitute a plea, not- 
only sufficient in the apprehension of the claimant, but suf- 
ficient in the general sense of the community, for substan- 
tiating the right of many a proprietor. 

12. But there is still another primitive ingredient which 
enters into this feeling of property ; and we call it primitive, 
because anterior to the sanctions or the application of law. 
Let the child, in addition to the plea that it had been the 
recent occupier of the chair in question, be able further to 
advance in argument for its right — that, with its own hands, 
it had just placed it beside the fire, and thereby given addi- 
tional value to the occupation of it. The reason is both felt 
by the child itself, and will be admitted by other children 
even of a very tender age, as a strengthener of its claim. It 
exemplifies the second great principle on which the natural 
right of property rests — even that every man is proprietor of 
the fruit of his own labour; and that to whatever extent .ha 



184 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



may have impressed additional value on any given thing by 
the work of his own hands, to that extent, at least, he should 
be held the owner of it. 

13. This then seems the way in which the sense of his 
right to any given thing arises in the heart of the claimant ; 
but something more must be said to account for the manner 
in which this right is deferred to by his companions. It 
accounts for the manner in which the possessory feeling 
arises in the hearts of one and all of them, when similarly 
circumstanced ; but it does not account for the manner in 
which this possessory feeling, in the heart of each, is 
respected by all his fellows — so that he is suffered to remain 
in the secure and unmolested possession of that which he 
rightfully claims. The circumstances which originate the 
sense of property serve to explain this one fact, the existence 
of a possessory feeling in the heart of every individual who 
is actuated thereby. But the deference rendered to this 
feeling by any other individuals, is another and a distinct 
fact ; and we must refer to a distinct principle from that of 
the mere sense of property for the explanation of it. This 
new or distinct principle is a sense of equity — or that which 
prompts to likeness or equality, between the treatment which 
I should claim of others and my treatment of them ; and in 
virtue of which I should hold it unrighteous and unfair, if I 
disregarded or inflicted violence on the claim of another, 
which, in the same circumstances with him, I am conscious 
that I should have felt, and would have advanced for myself. 
Had I been the occupier of that chair, in like manner with 
the little claimant who is now insisting on the possession of 
it, I should have felt and claimed precisely as he is doing. 
Still more, had I like him placed it beside the fire, I should 
have felt what he is now expressing— a still more distinct 
and decided right to it. If conscious of an identity of feel- 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY, 



185 



hig between me and another in the same circumstances — 
then let my moral nature be so far evolved as to feel the 
force of this consideration ; and, under the operation of a 
sense of equity, I shall defer to the very claim which I should 
myself have urged, had I been similarly placed. And it is 
marvellous how soon the hearts of children discover a sensi- 
bility to this consideration, and how soon they are capable 
of becoming obedient to the power of it. It is, in fact, the 
principle on which a thousand contests of the nursery are 
settled, and many thousand more are prevented ; what else 
would be an incessant scramble of rival and ravenous cupidity, 
being mitigated and reduced to a very great though unknown 
and undefinable extent, by the sense of justice coming into 
play. It is altogether worthy of remark, however, that the 
sense of property is anterior to the sense of justice, and 
comes from an anterior and distinct source in our nature. 
It is not justice which originates the proprietary feeling in 
the heart of any individual. It only arbitrates between the 
proprietary claims and feelings of different individuals — after 
these had previously arisen by the operation of other prin- 
ciples in the human constitution. Those writers on juris- 
prudence are sadly and inextricably puzzled who imagine 
that justice presided over the first ordinations of property — 
utterly at a loss as they must be to find out the principle 
that could guide her initial movements. Justice did not 
create property; but found it already created — her only 
office being to decide between the antecedent claims of one 
man and another : And, in the discharge of this office, she 
but compares the rights which each of them can allege, as 
founded either on the length of undisputed and undisposed- 
of possession, or on the value they had impressed on the 
thing at issue by labour of their own. In other words, she 
bears respect to those two great primitive ingredients by 



186 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



which property is constituted, before that she had ever be- 
stowed any attention or given any award whatever regarding 
it. The matter may be illustrated by the peculiar relation 
in which each man stands to his own body, as being, in a 
certain view, the same with the peculiar relation in which 
each man stands to his own property. His sensitive feelings 
are hurt by the infliction of a neighbour's violence upon the 
one ; and his proprietary feelings are hurt by the encroach- 
ment of a neighbour's violence upon the other. But justice 
no more originated the proprietary than it did the sensitive 
feelings — no more gave me the peculiar affection which I 
feel for the property I now occupy as my own, than it gave 
me my peculiar affection for the person which I now occupy 
as my own. Justice pronounces on the iniquity of any hurt- 
ful infliction by us on the person of another — seeing that 
such an infliction upon our own person, to which we stand, 
similarly related, would be resented by ourselves. And 
Justice, in like manner, pronounces on the inequality or 
iniquity of any hurtful encroachment by us on the property 
of another — also seeing that such an encroachment upon our 
own property, to which we stand similarly related, would be 
felt and resented by ourselves. Man feels one kind of pain ? 
when the hand which belongs to him is struck by another 
and he feels another kind of pain, when some article which, it 
holds, and which he conceives to belong to him, is wrested by 
another from its grasp. But it was not Justice which insti- 
tuted either the animal economy in the one case, or the pro- 
prietary economy in the other. Justice found them both 
already instituted* Property is not the creation of J ustice ; 
but is in truth a prior creation. Justice did not forni this 
material, or command it into being; but in the course of 
misunderstanding or controversy between man and man r 
property, a material pre-existent or already made, forms tha 



THE WELLBEi:N T G OJ SOCIETY. 



187 



subject of many of those questions which are put into her 
hands. 

14. But, recurring to the juvenile controversy which we 
have already imagined for the purpose of illustration, there 
is still a third way in which we may conceive it to be conclu- 
sively and definitively settled. The parents may interpose 
their authority, and assign his own particular chair to each 
member of the household. The instant effect of such a de- 
cree, in fixing and distinguishing the respective properties in 
all time coming, has led, we believe, to a misconception, 
regarding the real origin of property — in consequence of a: 
certain obscure analogy between this act of parents or legis- 
lators over the family of a household, and a supposed act of 
rulers or legislators over the great family of a nation. Now, 
not only have the parents this advantage over the magistrates 
— that the property which they thus distribute is previously 
their own ; but there is both a power of enforcement and a 
disposition to acquiescence within the limits of a home, which 
exist in an immeasurably weaker degree within the limits of 
a kingdom. Still, with all this superiority on the part of the 
household legislators, it would even be their wisdom to con- 
form their decree as much as possible to those natural prin- 
ciples and feelings of property, which had been in previous 
exercise among their children — to have respect, in fact, when 
making distribution of the chairs, both to their habits of 
previous occupation, and to the additional value which any 
of them may have impressed upon their favourite seats, by 
such little arts of upholstery or mechanics as they are com- 
petent to practise. A wise domestic legislator would not 
thwart, but rather defer to the claims and expectations which 
nature had previously founded. And still more a national 
legislator or statesman would evince his best wisdom, by, 
instead of traversing the constitution of property which na~ 



188 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



lure had previously established, greatly deferring to that 
sense of a possessory right which long and unquestioned 
occupation so universally gives ; and greatly deferring to 
the principle, that, whatever the fruit of each man's labour 
may be, it rightfully, and therefore should legally belong- 
to him. A government could, and at the termination of a 
revolutionary storm, often does, traverse these principles ; 
but not without the excitement of a thousand heartburnings, 
and so the establishment of a strong counteraction to its own. 
authority in the heart of its dominions. It is the dictate of 
sound policy —that the natural, on the one hand, and 
the legal or political on the other, should quadrate as 
much as possible. And thus, instead of saying with Dr. 
Paley that property derived its constitution and being from 
the law of the land — we should say that law never exhibits 
a better understanding of her own place and functions, than 
when, founding on materials already provided, she feels that 
her wisest part is but to act as an auxiliary, and to ratify 
that prior constitution which nature had put into her hands. 

15. In this exposition which we have now attempted of the 
origin and rights of property, we are not insensible to the 
mighty use of law. By its power of enforcement, it per- 
petuates or defends from violation that existent order of 
things which itself had established, or, rather, which itself 
had ratified. Even though at its first ordinations it had 
contravened those natural principles which enter into the 
foundation of property, these very principles will, in time, 
reappear in favour of the new system, and yield to it a firmer 
and a stronger support with every day of its continuance. 
Whatever fraud or force may have been concerned at the 
historical commencement of the present and actual distribu- 
tion of property — the then new possessors have at length 
become old ; and, under under the canopy and protection of 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



189 



law, the natural rights have been superadded to the factitious 
or the political. Law has guaranteed to each proprietor a 
long-continued occupation, till a strong and inveterate pos- 
sessory feeling has taken root and arisen in every heart, 
And secure of this occupation, each may, in the course of 
years, have mixed up to an indefinite amount, the improve- 
ments of his own skill and labour on those estates which, as 
the fruit whether of anarchy or victorious invasion, had fallen 
into his hands. So that these first and second principles of 
natural jurisprudence, whatever violence may have been done 
to them at the overthrow of a former regime, are again 
fostered into all their original efficacy and strength during 
the continuance of a present one. Insomuch, that if, at the 
end of half a century, those outcasts of a great revolutionary 
hurricane, the descendants of a confiscated noblesse were 
to rally and combine for the recovery of their ancient 
domains — they would be met in the encounter, not by the 
force of the existing government only, but by the outraged 
and resentful feelings of the existing proprietors, whose pos- 
sessory and prescriptive rights, now nurtured into full and 
firm establishment, would, in addition to the sense of in- 
terest, enlist even the sense of justice upon their side. 
Apart from the physical, did we but compute the moral forces 
which enter into such a conflict, it will often be found that 
the superiority is in favour of the actual occupiers. Those 
feelings, on the one hand, which are associated with the 
recollection of a now departed ancestry, and their violated 
rights, are found to be inoperative and feeble, when brought 
into comparison or collision with that strength which nature 
has annexed to the feelings of actual possession. Begarded 
as but a contest of sentiment alone, the disposition to recover 
is not so strong as the disposition to retain. The recollection 
that these were once my parental acres, though wrested from 



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AI^ECTIONS WfilCH CONDUCE TO 



the hand of remote ancestors by anarchists and marauders^ 
would not enlist so great or so practical a moral force on the 
aggressive side of a new warfare, as the reflection that these 
are now my possessed acres, which, though left but by im- 
mediate ancestors, I have been accustomed from infancy to 
call my own, would enlist on the side of the defensive. In 
the course of generations, those sedative influences, which 
tend to the preservation of the existing order, wax stronger 
and stronger ; and those disturbing influences, which tend to 
the restoration of the ancient order, wax weaker and weaker 
—till man at last ceases to charge himself with a task so in- 
finitely above his strength, as the adjustment of the quarrels 
and the accumulated wrongs of the centuries which have 
gone by. In other words, the constitution of law in regard 
to property, which is the work of man, may be so framed as 
to sanction, and therefore, to encourage the enormities which 
have been perpetrated by the force of arms — while the con- 
stitution of the mind in regard to property, which is the 
work of nature, is so framed, as, with conservative virtue, to 
be altogether on the side of perpetuity and peace. 

16. Had a legislator of supreme wisdom, and armed with 
despotic power, been free to establish the best scheme for 
augmenting the wealth and the comforts of human society- 
he could have devised nothing more effectual than that ex- 
isting constitution of property, which obtains so generally 
throughout the world ; and by which each man, secure within 
the limits of his own special and recognised possession, might 
claim as being rightly and originally his, the fruit of all the 
labour which he may choose to expend upon it. But this 
was not left to the discovery of man, or to any ordinations 
of his consequent upon that discovery. He was not led to 
this arrangement by the experience of its consequences ; but 
prompted to it by certain feelings, as much prior to that ex- 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



191 



perience as the appetite of hunger is prior to our experience 
of the use of food. In this matter, too, the wisdom of nature 
has anticipated the wisdom of man, by providing him with 
original principles of her own. Man was not left to find out 
the direction in which his benevolence might be most pro- 
ductive of enjoyment to others ; but he has been irresistibly, 
and, as far as he is concerned, blindly impelled thereto by 
means of a family affection — which, concentrating its efforts 
'on a certain few, has made them a hundred times more pro- 
lific of benefit to mankind than if all had been left to provide 
the best they may for the whole, without a precise or deter- 
minate impulse to any. And in like manner, man was not 
left to find out the direction in which his industry might be 
made most productive of the materials of enjoyment ; but 
with the efforts of each concentrated by means of a special 
possessory affection on a certain portion of the territory, the 
•universal produce is incalculably greater than under a medley 
system of indifference, with every field alike open to all, and, 
therefore, alike unreclaimed from the wilderness — unless one 
man shall consent to labour in seed-time, although another 
• should reap the fruit of his labour in harvest. It is good 
that man was not trusted with the whole disentanglement of 
this chaos — but that a natural jurisprudence, founded on the 
constitution of the human mind, so far advances and facili- 
tates the task of that artificial jurisprudence, which frames 
•the various codes or constitutions of human law. It is well 
that nature has connected with the past and actual posses- 
sion of any thing, so strong a sense of right to its continued 
possession ; and that she has so powerfully backed this 
principle, by means of another as strongly and universally 
felt as the former, even that each man has a right to possess 
the 1 fruit of his own industry. The human legislator has 
little more to do than to confirm, or rather to promulgate 



192 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



and make known his determination to abide by principles 
already felt and recognised by all men. "Wanting these, he 
conld have fixed nothing, he could have perpetuated nothing. 
The legal constitution of every state, in its last and finished 
form, comes from the hand of man. But the great and 
natural principles, which secure for these constitutions the 
acceptance of whole communities — implanted in man from 
his birth, or at least evincing their presence and power in 
very early childhood — these are what bespeak the immediate 
hand of God. 

17. But these principles, strongly conservative though 
they be, on the side of existing property, do not at all times 
prevent a revolution — which is much more frequently, how- 
ever, a revolution of power than of property. But when 
such is the degree of violence abroad in society, that even 
the latter is effected — this, most assuredly, does not arise 
from any decay or intermission of the possessory feelings, 
that we have just been expounding ; but from the force and 
fermentation of other causes which prevail in opposition to 
these, and in spite of them. And, after that such revolution 
has done its work, and ejected the old dynasty of proprietors, 
the mischief to them may be as irrecoverable, as if their 
estates had been wrested from them by an irruption from the 
waters of the o cean, by earthquake, or the sweeping resistless 
visitation of any other great physical calamity. The moral 
world has its epochs and its transitions as well as the natural, 
during which the ordinary laws are not suspended, but only 
for the time overborne ; but this does not hinder the recur- 
rence and full reinstatement of these laws during the long 
eras of intermediate repose. And it is marvellous with 
what certainty and speed the conservative influences, of 
which we have treated, gather around a new system of 
things, with whatever violence, and even injustice, it may 



THE WELLBEING OP SOCIETY. 



193 



have been ushered into the world— insomuch that, under the 
guardianship of the powers which be, those links of a natural 
jurisprudence, now irretrievably torn from the former, are at 
length transferred in all their wonted tenacity to the existing 
proprietors ; rivet ting each of them to his own several pro- 
perty, and altogether establishing a present order of as great 
firmness and strength as ever belonged to the order which 
went before it, but which is now superseded and forgotten. 
It is well that nature hath annexed so potent a charm to 
actual possession ; and a charm which strengthens with every 
year and day of its continuance. This may not efface the 
historical infamy of many ancient usurpations. But the 
world cannot be kept in a state of perpetual effervescence ; 
and now that the many thousand wrongs of years gone by, 
as well as the dead on whom they have been inflicted, arc 
lading into deep oblivion — it is well for the repose of its 
living generations, that, in virtue of the strong possessory 
feelings which nature causes to arise in the hearts of ex- 
isting proprietors, and to be sympathised with by all other 
men, the possessors de facto have at length the homage done 
to them of possessors de jure : strong in their own conscious- 
ness of right, and strong in the recognition thereof by all 
their contemporaries. 

18. But ere we have completed our views upon this 
subject, we must shortly dwell on a principle of every exten- 
sive application in morals ; and which itself forms a striking 
example of a most beauteous and beneficent adaptation in 
the constitution of the human mind to the needs and well- 
being of human society. It may be thus announced, briefly 
and generally : — However strong the special affections of our 
nature may be, yet, if along with them there be but a prin- 
ciple of equity in the mind, then these affections, so far from 
concentrating our selfish regards upon their several objects, 

o 



194 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



to the disregard, and injury of others, will but enhance our 
respect and our sympathy for the like affections in other men* 
19. This may be illustrated, in the first instance, by the 
equity observed between man and man, in respect to the 
bodies which they wear — endowed, as we may suppose them 
to be, with equal, at least with like capacities of pain and 
suffering from external violence. To inflict that very pain 
upon another which I should resent or shrink from in agony, 
if inflicted upon myself — this, to all sense of justice,- appears 
a very palpable iniquity. Let us now conceive, then, that 
the sentient framework of each of the parties was made twice 
more sensitive, or twice more alive to pain and pungency of 
feeling than it actually is. In one view it may be said that 
each would become twice more selfish than before. Each 
would feel a double interest in warding off external violence 
from himself; and so be doubly more anxious for his own 
protection and safety. But, with the very same moral 
nature as ever, each, now aware of the increased sensi- 
bility, not merely in himself, but in his fellows, would feel 
doubly restrained from putting forth upon him a hand of 
violence. So, grant him to have but a sense of equity— and 
exactly in proportion as he became tender of himself, would 
he become tender of another also. If the now superior 
exquisiteness of his own frame afforded him a topic, on 
which what may be called his selfishness would feel more 
intensely than before — the now superior exquisiteness of 
another's frame would, in like manner, afford a topic on which 
his sense of justice would feel more intensely than before. 
It is even as when men of very acute sensibilities company 
together— each has, on that very account, a more delicate and 
refined consideration for the feelings of all the rest ; and it 
is only among men of tougher pellicle and rigid fibre where 
coarseness and freedom prevail, because their coarseness and 



THE WELLBEESG 0E SOCIETY. 



195 



freedom are not felt to be offensive. Grant but a sense 
of equity — and the very fineness of my sensations which weds 
me so much more to the care and the defence of my own 
person, would also, on the imagination of a similar fineness 
in a fellow man, restrain me so much more from the putting 
forth of any violence upon his person. If I had any com- 
passion at all, or any horror at the injustice of inflicting upon 
another that which I should feel to be a cruelty if inflicted 
upon myself — I would experience a greater recoil of sym- 
pathy from the blow that was directed to the surface of a 
recent wound upon another, precisely as I would feel a 
severer agony in a similar infliction upon myself. So, there 
is nothing in the quickness of my physical sensibilities, and 
by which I am rendered more alive to the care and the 
guardianship of my own person — there is nothing in this to 
blunt, far less to extinguish my sensibilities for other men. 
Nay, it may give a quicker moral delicacy to all the sym- 
pathies which I before felt for them. And especially, the 
more sensitive I am to the hurts and the annoyances which 
others bring upon my own person, the more scrupulous may 
I be of being in any way instrumental to the hurt or the 
annoyance of others. 

20. The same holds true between man and man, not merely 
of the bodies which they wear, but of the families which, 
belong to them. Each man by nature hath a strong affection 
for his own offspring — the young whom he hath reared, and 
with whom the daily habit of converse under the same roof 
hath strengthened all the original affinities that subsisted 
between them. But one man a parent knows that another 
man, also a parent, is actuated by the very same appropriate 
sensibilities towards his offspring ; and nought remains but 
to graft on these separate and special affections in each a 
sympathy between one neighbour and another ; that there 



196 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



might be a mutual respect for each other's family affections. 
After the matter is advanced thus far, we can be at no loss 
to perceive, that, in proportion to the strength of the parental 
affection with each, will be the strength of the fellow-feeling 
that each has with the affection of the other — insomuch that 
he who bears in his heart the greatest tenderness for his own 
offspring, would feel the greatest revolt against an act of 
severity towards the offspring of his friend. Now it is alto- 
gether so with the separate and original sense of property in 
each of two neighbours, and a sense of justice grafted there- 
upon — even as a mutual neighbourlike sympathy may be 
grafted on the separate family affections. One man a pro- 
prietor, linked by many ties with that which he hath pos- 
sessed and been in the habitual use and management of for 
years, is perfectly conscious of the very same kind of affinity 
between another man a proprietor and that which belongs to 
him. It is not the justice which so links him to his own 
property, any more than it is the sympathy with his neigh- 
bour which has linked him to his own children. But the 
justice hath given him a respectful feeling for his neighbour's 
rights, even as the sympathy would give him a tenderness for 
his neighbour's offspring. And so far from there being aught 
in the strength of the appropriating principle that relaxes this 
deference to the rights of his neighbour, the second principle 
may in fact grow with the growth, and strengthen with 
the strength of the first one. 

21. For the purpose of maintaining an equitable regard or 
an equitable conduct to others — it is no more necessary that 
we should reduce or extirpate the special affections of our 
nature, than that, in order to make room for the love of 
another, we should discharge from the bosom all love of our- 
selves. So far from this, the affection we have for ourselves, 
or for those various objects which by the constitution of our 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



197 



nature we are formed to seek after and to delight in — is the 
measure of that duteous regard which we owe to others, and 
of that duteous respect which we owe to all their rights and 
all their interests. The very highest behest of social morality, 
while at the same time the most comprehensive of its rules, is 
that we should love our neighbour as we do ourselves. Love 
to our neighbour is the thing which this rule measures off — 
and love to ourselves is the thing which it measures by. 
These two then, the social and the selfish affections, instead 
of being as they too often are inversely, might under a vir- 
tuous regimen be directly proportional to each other. At 
all events the way to advance or magnify the one, is not 
surely to weaken or abridge the other. The strength of 
certain prior affections which by nature we do have, is the 
standard of certain posterior affections which morality tells 
that we ought to have. Morality neither planted these prior 
affections, nor does she enjoin us to extirpate them. They 
were inserted by the hand of nature for the most useful pur- 
poses ; and morality, instead of demolishing her work, applies 
the rule and compass to it for the construction of her own. 

22. It was not justice which presided over the original 
distribution of property. It was not she who assigned to each 
man his separate field, any more than that it was she who 
assigned to each man his separate family. It was nature 
that did both, by investing with such power those anterior 
circumstances of habit and possession, which gave rise — first? 
to the special love that each man bears to his own children, 
and secondly, to the special love that each man bears to his 
own acres. Had there been no such processes beforehand, 
for thus isolating the parental regards of each on that cer- 
tain household group which nature placed under his roof, and 
the proprietary regards of each on that certain local territory 
which history casts into his possession ; or had each man 



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AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



been so constituted, that, instead of certain children whom 
he felt to be his own, he was alike loose to them, or sus- 
ceptible of a like random and indiscriminate affection for 
any children ; or instead of certain lands which he felt to be 
his own, he was alike loose to them, or susceptible of a like 
tenacious adherence to any lands— had such been the rudi- 
mental chaos which nature put into the hands of man for the 
exercise of his matured faculties, neither his morality nor 
his wisdom would have enabled him to unravel it. But na- 
ture prepared for man an easier task ; and when justice arose 
to her work, she found a territory so far already partitioned, 
and each proprietor linked by a strong and separate tie of 
peculiar force to that part which he himself did occupy. She 
found this to be the land which one man wont to possess 
and cultivate, and that to be the land which another man 
wont to possess and cultivate — the destination, not originally 
of justice, but of accident, which her office nevertheless is 
not to reverse, but to confirm. We hold it a beautiful part 
of our constitution, that, the firmer the tenacity wherewith 
the first man adheres to his own, once that justice takes her 
place among the other principles of his nature, the prompter 
will be his recognition of the second man's right to his own. 
If each man sat more loosely to his own portion, each would 
have viewed more loosely the right of his neighbour to the 
other portion. The sense of property, anterior to justice, 
exists in the heart of all: and the principle of justice, sub- 
sequent to property, does not extirpate these especial affec- 
tions, but only arbitrates between them. In proportion to 
the felt strength of the proprietary affection, in the hearts of 
each, will be the strength of that deference which each, in so 
far as justice has the mastery over him, renders to the rights 
and the property of his neighbour. These are the principles 
of the histoire raisonnee, that has been more or less exempli- 



THE WELLBEIXG OF SOCIETY. 



199 



fied in all the countries of the world ; and which might still 
be exemplified in the appropriation of a desert island. If 
we have not had the prior and special determinations of 
nature, justice would have felt the work of appropriation to 
be an inextricable problem. If we had not had justice, with 
each man obeying only the impulse of his own affection and 
unobservant of the like affections of others, we should have 
been kept in a state of constant and interminable war. 
Under the guidance of nature and justice together, the 
whole earth might have been parcelled out without conflict 
and without interference. 

23. If a strong self-interest in one's person may not only 
be consistent with, but, by the aid of the moral sense, may be 
conducive to a proportionally strong principle of forbearance 
from all injury to the persons of other men — why may not 
the very same law be at work in regard to property as to 
person ? The fondness wherewith one nourishes and 
cherishes his own flesh, might, we have seen, enhance 
his sympathy and his sense of justice for that of other men ; 
and so, we affirm, might it be of the fondness wherewith 
one nourishes and cherishes his own field. The relation 
in which each man stands to his own body, was anterior to 
the first dawnings of his moral nature ; and his instinctive 
sensibilities of pain and suffering, when any violence is in- 
flicted, were also anterior. But as his moral perceptions 
expand, and he considers others beside himself who are 
similarly related to their bodies — these very susceptibilities 
not only lead him to recoil from the violence that is offered 
to himself ; but they lead him to refrain from the offering of 
violence to other men. They may have an air of selfish- 
ness at the first ; yet so far from being obstacles in the way 
of justice, they are indispensable helps to it. And so may 
each man stand related to a property as well as to a person ; 



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AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



and by ties that bind him to it, ere he thought of his neigh* 
hour's property at all — by instinctive affections, which ope- 
rated previously to a sense of justice in his bosom ; and yet 
which, so far from acting as a thwart upon his justice to 
others, give additional impulse to all his observations of it. 
He feels what had passed within his own bosom, in reference 
to the field that he has possessed, and has laboured, and that 
has for a time been respected by society as his ; and he is 
aware of the very same feeling in the breast of a neigh- 
bour in relation to another field ; and in very proportion to 
the strength of his own feeling, does he defer to that of his 
fellow-men. It is at this point that the sense of justice 
begins to operate — not for the purpose of leading him to 
appropriate his own, for this he has already done ; but for 
the purpose of leading him to respect the property of others. 
It was not justice which gave to either of them at the first 
that feeling of property, which each has in his own separate 
domain ; any more than it was justice which gave to either 
of them that feeling of affection which each has for his own 
children. It is after and not before these feelings are formed, 
that justice steps in with her golden rule, of not doing to 
others as we would not others to do unto us ; and, all con- 
scious as we are of the dislike and resentment we should 
feel on the invasion of our property, it teaches to defer to a 
similar dislike and a similar resentment in other men. And, 
so far from this original and instinctive regard for this pro- 
perty which is my own, serving at all to impair, when once 
the moral sense comes into play, it enhances my equitable 
regard for the property of others. It is just with me the 
proprietor, as it is with me the parent. My affection for 
my own family does not prompt me to appropriate the family 
of another ; but it strengthens my sympathetic considera- 
tion for the tenderness and feeling of their own parent to 



THE WELLBEISTGr OF SOCIETY. 



201 



wards them. My affection for my own field does not incline 
me to seize upon that of another man; but it strengthens my 
equitable consideration for all the attachments and the 
claims which its proprietor has upon it. In proportion to 
the strength of that instinct which binds me to my own off- 
spring, is the sympathy I feel with the tenderness of other 
parents. In proportion to the strength of that instinct 
which binds me to my own property, is the sense of equity I 
feel towards the rights of all other proprietors. It was not 
justice which gave either the one instinct or the other ; but 
justice teaches each man to bear respect to that instinct in 
another, which he feels to be of powerful operation in his 
own bosom. 

2-4. It is in virtue of my sentient nature that I am so 
painfully alive to the violence done upon my own body, as to 
recoil from the infliction of it upon myself. And it is in 
virtue of my moral nature, that alive to the pain of other 
bodies than my own, I refrain from the infliction of it upon 
them. It is not justice which gives the sensations; but 
justice pronounces on the equal respect that is due to the 
sensations of all. Neither does justice give the sensations 
of property, but it finds them and pronounces on the respect 
which each owes to the sensations of all the rest. It was 
not justice which gave the personal feeling ; neither is it 
justice which gives the possessory feeling. Justice has no- 
thing to do with the process by which this body came to bo 
my own ; and although now, perhaps, there is not a property, 
at least in the civilized world, which may not have passed 
into the hand of their actual possessors, by a series of pur- 
chases, over which justice had the direction — yet there was 
a time when it might have been said, that justice has had 
nothing to do with the process by which this garden came to 
be my own ; and yet, then as well as now, it would have been 



202 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



the utterance of a true feeling, that he who touches this 
garden, touches the apple of mine eye. And it is as much 
the dictate of justice that we shall respect the one sensa- 
tion as the other. He, indeed, who has the greatest sensi- 
tiveness, whether about his own person or his own property, 
will, with an equal principle of justice in his constitution, 
have the greatest sympathy both for the personal and the 
proprietary rights of others. This view of it saves all the 
impracticable mysticism that has gathered around the specu- 
lations of those, who conceive of justice as presiding over the 
first distributions of property ; and so have fallen into the 
very common mistake, of trying to account for that which 
had been provided for by the wisdom of nature as if it had 
been provided by the wisdom and the principle of man. At 
the first allocations of property, justice may have had no hand 
in them. They were altogether fortuitous. One man set 
himself down, perhaps on a better soil than his neighbour, 
and chalked out for himself a larger territory , at a time when 
there was none who interfered or who offered to share it 
with him ; and so he came to as firm a possessory feeling in 
reference to his wider domain, as the other has in reference 
to his smaller. Our metaphysical jurists are sadly puzzled 
to account for the original inequalities of property, and for 
the practical acquiescence of all men in the actual and very 
unequal distribution of it — having recourse to an original 
social compact, and to other fictions alike visionary. But if 
there be truth in our theory, it is just as easy to explain, 
why the humble proprietor would no more think of laying 
claim to certain acres of his rich neighbour's estate because 
it was larger than his own, than he would think of laying 
claim to certain children of his neighbour's family because it 
was larger — or even of laying claim to certain parts of his 
neighbour's person because it was larger. He is sufficiently 



THE WELLEEiyG OF SOCIETY. 



203 



acquainted with his own nature to be aware, that, were the 
circumstances changed, he should feel precisely as his 
affluent neighbour does ; and he respects the feeling accord- 
ingly. He knows that, if himself at the head of a larger 
property, he would have the same affection for all its fields 
that the actual proprietor has ; and that, if at the head of a 
larger family he would have the same affection with the ac- 
tual parent for all its children. It is by making justice come 
in at the right place, that is, not prior to these strong affec- 
tions of nature but posterior to them, that the perplexities of 
this inquiry are done away. The principle on which it arbi- 
trates, is, not the comparative magnitude of the properties, 
but the relative feelings of each actual possessor towards 
each actual property ; and if it find these in every instance 
to be the very feelings which all men would have in the cir- 
cumstances belonging to that instance — it attempts no new 
distribution, but gives its full sanction to the distribution 
which is already before it. This is the real origin and up- 
holder of that conservative influence which binds together 
the rich and the poor in society ; and thus it is that property 
is respected throughout all its gradations. 

25. It is from the treatment of an original as if it were a 
derived affection, that the whole obscurity on this topic has 
arisen. It is quite as impossible to educe the possessory 
feeling from an anterior sense of justice, or from a respect 
for law — as it is to educe the parental feeling from a previous 
and comprehensive regard for the interests of humanity. 
There is no doubt that the general good is best promoted by 
the play of special family affections ; but this is the work of 
nature, and not the work of man. And there is no doubt 
that the wealth and comfort of society are inconceivably 
augmented by those influences, which bind each individual 
nearly as much to his own property, as he is bound to his 



204 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



own offspring. But in the one case as well as the other, 
there were certain instinctive regards that came first, and 
the office of justice is altogether a subsequent one ; not to 
put these regards into the breasts of any, but to award the 
equal deference that is due to the regards of all — insomuch 
that the vast domain of one individual, perhaps transmitted 
to him from generation to generation, throughout the 
lengthened series of an ancestry, whose feet are now upon 
the earth, but whose top reaches the clouds, and is there 
lost in distant and obscure antiquity — is, to the last inch of 
its margin, under a guardianship of justice as unviolable, as 
that which assures protection and ownership to the humble 
possessor of one solitary acre. The right of property is not 
the less deferred to, either because its divisions are unequal, 
or because its origin is unknown. And, even when history 
tells us that it is founded on some deed of iniquitous usur- 
pation, there is a charm in the continued occupation, that 
prevails and has the mastery over our most indignant re- 
membrance of the villany of other days. It says much for 
the strength of the possessory feeling, that, even in less than 
half a century, it will, if legal claims are meanwhile forborne, 
cast into obliteration all the deeds, and even all the delin- 
quences, which attach to the commencement of a property. 
At length the prescriptive right bears every thing before it, 
as by the consuetude of English, by the use and wont of 
Scottish law. And therefore, once more, instead of saying 
with Dr. Paley that it is the law of the land which constitutes 
the basis of property — the law exhibits her best wisdom, 
when she founds on the materials of that basis which nature 
and the common sense of mankind have laid before her. 

26. Dr. Thomas Brown we hold to have been partly right 
and partly wrong upon this subject. He evinces a true dis- 
cernment of what may be termed the pedigree of our feelings 



THE WELLBEIXO OP SOCIETY. 



205 



in regard to property, when he says, and says admirably well 
— that,* "Justice is not what constitutes property ; it is a 
virtue which presupposes property, and respects it however 
constituted." And further, that—" justice as a moral virtue 
is not the creation of property, but the conformity of our 
actions to those views of property, which vary in the various 
states of society." But it is not as he would affirm, it is not 
because obedience to a system of law, of which the evident 
tendency is to the public good, is the object of our moral 
regard — it is not this which moralizes, if we may be allowed 
such an application of the term, or rather, which constitutes 
the virtuousness of our respect to another man's property. 
This is the common mistake of those moralists, who would 
ascribe every useful direction or habitude of man to some 
previous and comprehensive view taken by himself of what is 
best for the good of the individual or the good of society ; 
instead of regardiug such habitude as the fruit of a special 
tendency, impressed direct by the hand of nature, on a pre- 
vious and comprehensive view taken by its Author, and there- 
fore bearing on it a palpable indication both of the goodness 
and the wisdom of nature's God — even as hunger is the in- 
voluntary result of man's physical constitution, and not of 
any care or consideration by man on the uses of food. The 
truth is— when deferring to another's right of property, we 
do not think of the public good in the matter at all. But 
we are glad, in the first instance, each to possess and to use 
and to improve all that we are able to do without molestation, 
whether that freedom from molestation has been secured to 
us bylaw or by the mere circumstances of our state ; and, in 
virtue of principles, not resulting from any anticipations of 
wisdom or any views of general philanthropy, (because deve- 
loped in early childhood, and long before we are capable of 

* Lecture Ixxxiii. 



206 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



being either philanthropists or legislators,) we feel a strong 
link of ownership with that which we have thus possessed 
and used, and on which we have bestowed our improvements; 
and we are aware that another man, in similar relation with 
another property, will feel towards it in like manner 5 and a 
sense of justice, or its still more significant and instructive 
name, of equity, suggests this equality between me and him 
^— that, in the same manner as I would regard this encroach- 
ment on myself as injurious, so it were alike injurious in me 
to make a similar encroachment upon my neighbour. 

27. We have expatiated thus long on the origin and rights 
of property — because of all subjects, it is the one, regarding 
which our writers on jurisprudence have sent forth the 
greatest amount of doubtful and unsatisfactory metaphysics. 
They labour and are in great perplexity to explain even the 
rise of the feeling or desire that is in the mind regarding it. 
They reason, as if the very conception of property was that 
which could not have entered into the heart of man without 
a previous sense of justice. In this we hold them to have 
antedated matters wrong. The conception of property is 
aboriginal ; and the office of justice is not to put it into any 
man's head ; but to arbitrate among the rival feelings of 
cupidity, or the arrogant and overpassing claims that are apt 
to get into all men's heads — not to initiate man into the 
notion of property ; but, in fact, to limit and restrain his 
notion of it — not to teach the creatures who at first conceive 
themselves to have nothing, what that is which they might call 
their own ; but to teach the creatures whose first and earliest 
tendency is to call every thing their own, what that is which 
they must refrain from and concede to others. When justice 
rises to authority among men, her office is, not to wed each 
individual by the link of property to that which he formerly 
thought it was not competent for him to use or to possess ; 



THE WELLEEING OE SOCIETY. 



207 



but it is to divorce each individual from that which it is not 
rightly competent for him to use or to possess — and thus 
restrict each to his own rightful portion. Its office in fact 
is restrictive, not dispensatory. The use of it is, not to give 
the first notion of property to those who were .destitute of 
it, but to limit and restrain the notion with those among 
whom it is apt to exist in a state of overflow. The use or 
law, in short, the great expounder and enforcer of property, 
is not to instruct the men who, but for her lessons, would 
appropriate none ; but it is to restrain the men who, but for 
her checks and prohibitions, would monopolize all. 

28. Such then seems to have been the purpose of nature 
in so framing our mental constitution, that we not only 
appropriate from the first, but feel, each, such a power in 
those circumstances, which serve to limit the appropriation 
of every one man, and to distinguish them from those of 
others — that all, as if with common and practical consent, 
sit side by side together, without conflict and without inter- 
ference, on their own respective portions, however unequal, 
of the territory in which they are placed. On tbe uses, the 
indispensable uses of such an arraugement, we need not ex- 
patiate.* The hundred-fold superiority, in the amount of 

* " The effect (of the abolition of property) would be as instant as in- 
evitable. The cultivation of the fields would be abandoned. The popula- 
tion would be broken up into straggling bands — each prowling- in quest of 
a share in the remaining subsistence for themselves ; and in the mutual 
contests of rapacity, they would anticipate, by deaths of violence, those 
still crueller deaths that would ensue, in the fearful destitution whicli 
awaited them. Yet many would be left whom the sword had spared, but 
whom famine wo|ld not spare— that overwhelming calamity under which 
a whole nation might ultimately disappear. But a few miserable survi- 
vors would dispute the spontaneous fruits of the earth with the beasts of 
the field, that now multiplied and overran that land which had been de- 
solated of its people. And so by a series, every step of which was marked 



208 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



produce for the subsistence of human beings, which an ap- 
propriated country has over an equal extent of a like fertile 
but unappropriated, and therefore unreclaimed wilderness, is 
too obvious to be explained. It may be stated however ; and 
when an economy so beneficial, without which even a few 
stragglers of our race could not be supported in comfort ; 
and a large human family, though many times inferior to 
that which now peoples our globe, could not be supported at 
all — when the effect of this economy, in multiplying to a 
degree inconceivable the aliment of human bodies, is viewed 
in connection with those prior tendencies of the human mind 
which gave it birth, we cannot but regard the whole as an 
instance, and one of the strongest which it is possible to 
allege, of the adaptation of external nature to that mental 
constitution wherewith the Author of nature hath en- 
dowed us. 

29. In connection with this part of our subject, there is 
one especial adaptation, the statement of which we more 
willingly bring forward, that, beside being highly important 
in itself, it forms an instance of adaptation in the pure and 
limited sense of the term* — even the influence of a circum- 
stance strictly material on the state of the moral world in 

with increasing- wretchedness, the transition would at length be made to 
a thinly scattered tribe of hunters, on what before had been a peopled 
territory of industrious and cultivated men. Thus on the abolition of this 
single law, the fairest and most civilized region of the globe, which at pre- 
sent sustains its millions of families, out of a fertility that now waves 
over its cultivated, because its appropriated acres, would, on the simple 
tie of appropriation being broken, lapse in a very few years into a fright- 
ful solitude, or, if not bereft of humanity altogether, would at last become 
as desolate and dreary as a North American wilderness." — Political 
Economy, in connection with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of 
Society. 

* See the first paragraphs of the Introductory Chapter. 



THE WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 



209 



all the civilized, and indeed in all the appropriated countries 
on the face of the earth. "We advert to the actual fertility 
of the land, and to the circumstances purelv physical by 
which the degree or measure of that fertility is determined. 
It has been well stated by some of the expounders of geo 
logical science, that while the vegetable mould on the earth's 
surface is subject to perpetual waste, from the action both of 
the winds and of the waters, either blowing it away in dust, 
or washing it down in rivers to the ocean — the loss thus 
sustained is nevertheless perpetually repaired, by the opera- 
tion of the same material agents on the uplands of the 
territory — whence the dust and the debris, produced by a 
disintegration that is constantly going on even in the hardest 
rocks, is either strewed by the atmosphere, or carried down 
in an enriching sediment by mountain streams to the lands 
which are beneath them. It has been rightly argued, as the 
evidence and example of a benevolent design, that the oppo- 
site causes of consumption and of supply are so adjusted to 
each other, as to have ensured the perpetuity of our soils.* 

* " It is highly interesting- to trace up, in this manner, the action of 
causes with which we are familiar, to the production of effects, which at 
first seem to require the introduction of unknown and extraordinary 
powers ; and it is no less interesting to observe, how skilfully nature has 
balanced the action of all the minute causes of waste, and rendered them 
conducive to the general good. Of this we have a most remarkable 
instance, in the provision made for preserving the soil, or the coat of vege- 
table mould, spread out over the surface of the earth. This coat, as it 
consists of loose materials, is easily washed away by the rains, and is con- 
tinually carried down by the rivers into the sea. This effect is visible to 
every one ; the earth is removed not only in the form of sand and gravel, 
but its finer particles suspended in the waters, tinge those of some rivers 
continually, and those of all occasionally, that is, when they are flooded 
or swollen with rains. The quantity of earth thus carried down varies 
according to circumstances : it has been computed in some instances, that 
the water of a river in a flood, contains earthy matter suspended in it, 

P 



210 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



But even though these counteracting forces had been some- 
what differently balanced ; though the wasting operation had 
remained as active and as powerful, while a more difficult 
pulverization of the rocks had made the restorative operation 
slower and feebler than before— still we might have had our 
permanent or stationary soils, but only all of less fertility 
than that in which we now find them. A somewhat different 
constitution of the rocks ; or a somewhat altered proportion 
in the forces of that machinery which is brought to bear 
upon them — in the cohesion that withstands, or in the impulse 
and the atmospherical depositions and the grinding frosts 
and the undermining torrents that separate and carry off the 
materials — a slight change in one or all of these causes, 
might have let down each of the various soils on the face of 
the world to a lower point in the scale of productiveness than 
at present belongs td them. And when we think of the 
mighty bearing which the determination of this single element 
has on the state and interests of human society, we cannot 
resist the conclusion that, depending as it does on so many in- 
fluences, there has, in the assortment of these, been a studied 

amounting' to more than the two hundred and fiftieth part of its own bulk. 
The soil therefore is continually diminished, its parts being" delivered from 
hig-her to lower levels, and finally delivered into the sea. But it is a fact, 
that the soil, notwithstanding", remains the same in quantity, or at least 
nearly the same, and must have done so, ever since the earth was the 
receptacle of animal or vegetable life. The soil therefore is augmented 
from other causes, just as much, at an average, as it is diminished by that 
now mentioned ; and this augmentation evidently can proceed from nothing" 
but the constant and slow disintegration of the rocks, in the permanence, 
therefore of a coat of vegetable mould on the surface of the earth, we 
have a demonstrative proof of the continual destruction of the rocks ; and 
cannot but admire the skill with which the powers of the many chemical 
and mechanical agents employed in this complicated work are so adjusted, 
as to make the supply and the waste of the soil exactly equal to one 
another."— Playfairs Illustrations qf the Euttonian Theory, Section iii. 



THE WELLBELN'O OF SOCIETY. 



211 



adaptation of the material and the mental worlds to each other . 
For only let us consider the effect, had the fertility been 
brought so low, as that on the best of soils, the produce 
extracted by the most strenuous efforts of human toil, could 
no more than repay the cultivation bestowed on them — or 
that the food, thus laboriously raised, would barely suffice 
for the maintenance of the labourers. It is obvious that a 
fertility beneath this point would have kept the whole earth 
in a state of perpetual barrenness and desolation— when, 
though performing as now its astronomical circuit in the 
heavens, it would have been a planet bereft of life, or at 
least unfit for the abode and sustenance of the rational 
generations by whom it is at present occupied. But even 
with a fertility at this point, although a race of men might 
have been upholden, the tenure by which each man held 
his existence, behoved to have been a life of unremitting 
drudgery ; and we should have beheld the whole species 
engaged in a constant struggle of penury and pain for the 
supply of their animal necessities. And it is because of a 
fertility above this point, the actual fertility of vast portions 
of land in most countries of the earth — that many and 
extensive are the soils which yield a large surplus produce, 
over and above the maintenance of all who are engaged, 
whether directly or indirectly, in the work of their cultiva- 
tion. The strength of the possessory feelings on the one 
hand, giving rise to possessory rights recognised and ac- 
quiesced in by all men ; these rights investing a single 
individual with the ownership of lands, that yield on the 
other hand a surplus produce, over which he has the uncon- 
trolled disposal — make up together such a constitution of 
the moral, combined with such a constitution of the material 
system, as demonstrates that the gradation of wealth in 
human society has its deep and its lasting foundation in the 



212 



AFFECTIONS "WHICH CONDUCE TO 



nature of things. And that the construction of such am 
economy, with all the conservative influences by which it is 
upholden,* attests both the wisdom and the benevolence of 
Him who is the Author of nature, may best be evinced by 
the momentous purposes to which this surplus produce of 
land (the great originator of all that can be termed affluence 
in the world) is subservient. — "Had no ground yielded 
more in return for the labours expended on it, than the food 
of the cultivators and their secondaries, the existence of one 
and all of the human race would have been spent in mere 
labour. Every man would have been doomed to a life of 
unremitting toil for his bodily subsistence ; and none could 
have been supported in a state of leisure, either for idleness, 
or for other employments than those of husbandry, and 
such coarser manufactures as serve to provide society with 
the second necessaries of existence. The species would 
have risen but a few degrees, whether physical or moral, 
above the condition of mere savages. It is just because of 
a fertility in the earth, by which it yields a surplus over and 
above the food of the direct and secondary labourers, that- 
we can command the services of a disposable population, 
who, in return for their maintenance, minister to the pro- 
prietors of this surplus, all the higher comforts and ele- 
gancies of life. It is precisely to this surplus that we owe 
it, that society is provided with more than a coarse and a 
bare supply for the necessities of animal nature. It is the 
original fund out of which are paid the expenses of art and 
science and civilization and luxury and law and defence, 
and all, in short, that contributes either to strengthen or to 
adorn the commonwealth. "Without this surplus we should 
have had but an agrarian population — consisting of hus- 
bandmen, and those few homely and rustic artificers, who, 

* See Art. 7, of this Chapter. 



THE WELLBEIXG OF SOCIETY. 



213 



scattered in hamlets over the land, would have given their 
secondary services to the whole population. It marks an 
interesting connection between the capabilities of the soil, 
and the condition of social life, that to this surplus we stand 
indispensably indebted, for our crowded cities, our thousand 
manufactories for the supply of comforts and refinements 
to society, our wide and diversified commerce, our armies 
of protection, our schools and colleges of education, our halls 
of legislation and justice, even our altars of piety and temple 
services. It has been remarked by geologists, as the evi- 
dence of a presiding design in nature, that the waste of the 
soil is so nicely balanced by the supply from the disinte- 
gration of the upland rocks, which are worn and pulverized 
at such a 'rate, as to keep up a good vegetable mould on 
the surface of the earth. But each science teems with the 
like evidences of a devising and intelligent God ; and when 
we view aright the many beneficent functions, to which, 
through the instrumentality of its surplus produce, the 
actual degree of the earth's fertility is subservient, we can- 
not imagine a more wondrous and beautiful adaptation 
between the state of external nature and the mechanism of 
human society."* 

* Political Economy, in connection with the Moral State and Moral 
Prospects of Society, Chap. ii. Art. 10. In the appendix to this work, 
on the subject of rent, we have made further observations tending- to prove 
.that " there is an optimism in the actual constitution of the land, as in 
^very thing* else that has proceeded from the hand of the Almig-hty." 



214 



CHAPTER VII. 

On those special Affections which conduce to the Economic 
Wellbeing of Society. 

1. We now proceed to consider the economic, in contra- 
distinction to the civil and political wellbeing of society, to the 
extent that this is dependent on certain mental tendencies 
— whether these can be demonstrated by analysis to be the 
only secondary results, or in themselves to be simple 
elements of the human constitution. We may be said, in- 
deed, to have already bordered on this part of our argument 
— when considering the origin and the rights o£ property ; 
or the manner in which certain possessory affections, that 
appear even in the infancy of the mind, and anticipate by 
many years the exercise of human wisdom, lead to a better 
distribution, both of the earth and of all the valuables which 
are upon it, than human wisdom could possibly have devised, 
or at leasf than human power, without the help of these 
special affections, could have carried into effect. Eor 
there might be a useful economy sanctioned by law, yet 
which law could not have securely established, unless it had 
a foundation in nature. For in this respect there is a limit 
to the force even of the mightiest despotism — insomuch that 
the most absolute monarch on the face of the earth must so 
far conform himself to the indelible human nature of the 
subjects over whom he proudly bears the sway ; else, iu the 
reaction of their outraged principles and feelings, they would 
hurl him from his throne. And thus it is well, that, so very 
generally in the different countries of the world, law, both in 
her respect for the possessory and acquired rights of property, 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEiyG OP SOCIETY. 



215 



and in her enforcement of them, Las, instead of chalking out 
an arbitrary path for herself, only followed where nature be- 
forehand had pointed the way. It is far better, that, rather 
than devise a jurisprudence made up of her own capricious 
inventions— she should, to so great an extent, have but rati- 
fied a prior jurisprudence, founded on the original, or at 
least the universal affections of humanity. We know few 
things more instructive than a study of the mischievous 
effects which attend a deviation from this course— of which 
we at present shall state two remarkable instances. The 
evils which ensue when law traverses an^ of those principles 
that lie deeply seated in the very make and constitution of 
the mind, bringing out into more striking exhibition the 
superior wisdom of that nature from which she has departed 
— even as the original perfection of a mechanism is never 
more fully demonstrated, than by the contrast of those 
repeated failures, which shews of every change or attempted 
improvement, that it but deranges or deteriorates the opera- 
tions of the instrument in question. And thus too it is, 
that a lesson of sound theology may be gathered, from the 
errors with their accompanying evils of unsound legislation 
— on those occasions when the wisdom of man comes into 
conflict and collision with the wisdom of God. 

2. Of the two instances that Ave are now to produce, in 
which law hath made a deviation from nature, and done in 
consequence a tremendous quantity of evil, the first is the 
Tithe System of England. AVe do not think that the pro- 
vision of her established clergy is in any way too liberal — 
but very much the reverse. Still we hold it signal] v unfor- 
tunate that it should have been levied so as to do most un- 
necessary violence to the possessory feeling, both of the 
owners and occupiers of lana all over the country. Had the 
tithe, like some other of the public burdens, commuted into 



216 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



a pecuniary and yearly tax on the proprietors — the possessory 
feeling would not have been so painfully or so directly 
thwarted by it. But it is the constant intromission of the 
tithe agents or proctors with the fields, and the ipsa corpora 
that are within the limits of the property — which exposes 
this strong natural affection to an annoyance that is felt to 
be intolerable.* But far the best method of adjusting the 
state of the law to those principles of ownership which are 
anterior to law, and which all its authority is unable to 
quench — would be a commutation into land. Let the church 
property in each parish be dissevered in this way from its 
main territory : and then, both for the. lay and the ecclesiasti- 
cal domain, there would be an accordance of the legal with 
the possessory right. It is because these are in such painful 
dissonance, under the existing state of things, that there is 
so much exasperation in England, connected with the support 
and maintenance of her clergy. No doubt law can enforce 
her own arrangements, however arbitrary and unnatural they 

* The following 1 example of the thousands which might be alleged will 
shew how apt the possessory feeling- is to revolt against the legal right, and 
at length to overhear it. 

The fee-simple of the Church property of the Dean and Chapter of 
Durham is in the Dean and Chapter of Durham. 

The custom for ages has been to let houses on leases of forty years, and 
lands on leases of twenty-one years, at small reserved rents, these leases 
being renewable at the end of seven years, at the pleasure of the Dean and 
Chapter on the payment of arbitrary fines — which fines however as actually 
levied are exceedingly moderate, one year and a quarter being asked for 
houses, and one and a half for lands. 

Several of the families of the occupiers of lands and houses so leased 
have been in possession for generations — and long possession has given to 
some of these occupiers such a strength of possessory feeling, that they have 
the sense of being aggrieved, if they do not get the renewals on their 
own terms, 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBET^G OE SOCIETY. 



217 



might be ; but it is a striking exhibition, we have always 
thought, of the triumph of the possessory over the legal, 
that, in the contests between the two parties, the clergy 
haye constantly been losing ground. And, in resistance, to 
all the opprobrium which has been thrown upon them, do we 
affirm, that, with a disinterestedness which is almost heroic, 
they haye in deed and in practice forborne, to the average 
extent of at least one half, the assertion of their claims. 
The truth is, that the felt odium which attaches to the sys- 
tem ought never to haye fallen upon them. It is an insepa- 
rable consequence of the arrangement itself, by which law 
hath traversed nature — so as to be constantly rubbing, as it 
were, against that possessory feeling, which may be regarded 
as one of the strongest of her instincts. There are few 
reformations that would do more to sweeten the breath of 
English society, than the removal of this sore annoyance — 
the brooding fountain of so many heartburnings and so many 
festerments, by which the elements of an unappeasable 
warfare are ever at work between the landed interest of the 
country, and far the most important class of its public 
functionaries ; and, what is the saddest perversity of all, 
those whose office it is, by the mild persuasions of Chris- 
tianity, to train the population of our land in the lessons of 
love and peace and righteousness — they are forced by the 
necessities of a system which many of them deplore, into the 
attitude of extortioners ; and placed in that very current 
along which a people's hatred and a people's obloquy are 
wholly unavoidable.* Even under the theocracy of the 

* There is often the utmost injustice in that professional odium which 
is laid upon a whole order ; and none have suffered more under it than the 
clergy of England have, from the sweeping and indiscriminate charges 
which have "been preferred against them by the demagogues of our land. 



218 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



Jews, the system of tithes was with difficulty upholden ; and 
many are the remonstrances which the gifted seers of Israel 
held with its people, for having brought of the lame and the 
diseased as offerings. Such, in fact, is the violence done by 
this system to the possessory feelings, that a conscientious 
submission to its exactions may be regarded as a most decisive 
test of religious obedience — such an obedience, indeed, as 
was but ill maintained even in the days of the Hebrew polity, 
although it had the force of temporal sanctions, with the 
miracles and manifestations of a presiding Deity to sustain 
it. Unless by the express appointment of Heaven, this yoke 
of Judaism, unaccompanied as it now is by the peculiar and 
preternatural enforcements of that dispensation, ought never 
to have been perpetuated in the days of Christianity. There 
are distinct, and, we hold, valid reasons, for the national 
maintenance of an order of men in the capacity of religious 
instructors to the people.* But maintenance in a way so 
obnoxious to nature, is alike adverse to a sound civil and a 
sound Christian policy. Both the cause of religion and the 
cause of loyalty have suffered by it. The alienation of the 
church's wealth, were a deadly blow to the best and highest 
interests of England ; but there are few things which would 
conduce more to the strength and peace of our nation, than 
a fair and right commutation of it. 

3. Our next very flagrant example of a mischievous col- 
lision between the legal and possessory, is the English system 

"We believe that nothing has given more of edge and currency to these in- 
vectives, than the very unfortunate way in which their maintenance has 
been provided for: and many are the amiable and accomplished individuals 
among themselves to whom it is a matter of downright agony. 

* These reasons we have attempted to state in a little work, entitled, 
" On the Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical Endowments." 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEIJTtt OP SOCIETY. 



219 



of poor laws. By law each man who can make good his plea 
of necessity, has a claim for the relief of it, from the owners 
or occupiers of the soil, or from the owners or occupiers of 
houses ; and never, till the end of time, will all the autho- 
rity and all the enactments of the statute-book, be able to 
divest them of the feeling that their property is invaded. 
Law never can so counterwork the strong possessory feeling, 
as to reconcile the proprietors of England to this legalized 
enormity, or rid them of the sensation of a perpetual violence. 
It is this mal-adjustment between the voice that nature 
gives forth on the right of property, and the voice that arbi- 
trary law gives forth upon it — it is this which begets some- 
thing more than a painful insecurity as to the stability of 
their possessions. There is, besides, a positive, and what we 
should call a most natural irritation. That strong possessory 
feeling, by which each is wedded to his own domain in the 
relation of its rightful proprietor ; and which they can no 
more help, because as much a part of their original constitu- 
tion, than the parental feeling by which each is wedded to 
his own family in the relation of its natural protector — this 
strong possessory feeling, we say, is, under their existing 
economy, subject all over England to a perpetual and most 
painful annoyance. And accordingly we do find the utmost 
acerbity of tone and temper, among the upper classes of 
England, in reference to their poor. "We are not sure, in- 
deed, if there be any great difference, with many of them, 
between the feeling which they have towards the poor, and 
the feeling which they have towards poachers. Jt is true 
that the law is on the side of the one, and against the other. 
Yet it goes most strikingly to prove, how impossible it is for 
the law to carry the acquiescence of the heart, when it contra- 
venes the primary and urgent affection of nature — that 
paupers are in any degree assimilated to poachers in the 



220 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



public imagination ; and that the inroads of both upon pro- 
perty should be resented, as if both alike were a sort of 
trespass or invasion. 

4. And it is further interesting to observe the effect of 
this unnatural state of things on the paupers themselves. 
Even in their deportment we might read an unconscious 
homage to the possessory right. And whereas, it has been 
argued in behalf of a poor-rate, that, so far from degrading, 
it sustains an independence of spirit among the peasantry, 
by turning that which would have been a matter of beggary 
into a matter of rightful and manly assertion — there is none 
who has attended the meetings of a parish vestry, that will 
not readily admit, the total dissimilarity which obtains be- 
tween the assertion to a right of maintenance there, and the 
assertion of any other right whatever, w r hether on the field 
of war or of patriotism. There may be much of the inso- 
lence of beggary ; but along with this, there is a most dis- 
cernible mixture of its mean and crouching and ignoble 
sordidness. There is no common quality whatever between 
the clamorous onset of this worthless and dissipated crew, 
and the generous battle cry, Pro arts et focis, in which the 
humblest of our population will join — when paternal acres 
or the rights of any actually holden property are invaded. 
In the mind of the pauper, with all his challenging and all 
his boisterousness, there is still the latent impression, that, 
after all, there is a certain want of firmness about his plea. 
He is not altogether sure of the ground upon which he is 
standing ; and, in spite of all that law has done to pervert 
his imagination, the possessory right of those against whom 
he prefers his demand, stares him in the face, and disturbs 
him not a little out of that confidence wherewith a man re- 
presents and urges the demands of unquestionable justice. 
In spite of himself, he cannot avoid having somewhat the 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEIKG OF SOCIETY. 



221 



look and the consciousness of a poacher. And so the effect 
of England's most unfortunate blunder, has been, to alienate 
on the one hand her rich from her poor ; and on the other 
to debase into the very spirit and sordidness of beggary, a 
large and ever- increasing mass of her population. There is 
but one way, we can never cease to affirm, by which this 
grievous distemper of the body politic can be removed. And 
that is, by causing the law of property to harmonize with the 
strong and universal instincts of nature in regard to it ; by 
making the possessory right to be at least as inviolable as- 
the common sense of mankind would make it ; and as to the 
poor, by utterly recalling the blunder that England made, 
when she turned into a matter of legal constraint, that 
which should ever be a matter of love and liberty, and when 
she aggravated tenfold the dependence and misery of the 
lower classes, by divorcing the cause of humanity from the 
willing generosities, the spontaneous and unforced sympa- 
thies of our nature. 

5. But this brings into view another of our special affec- 
tions — our compassion for the distress, including, as one of 
its most prominent and frequently recurring objects, our 
compassion for the destitution of others. We have already 
seen how nature hath provided, by one of its implanted 
affections, for the establishment of property ; and for the 
respect in which, amid all its inequalities, it is held by society. 
But helpless destitution forms one extreme of this inequality, 
which a mere system of property appears to leave out ; and 
which, if not otherwise provided for by the wisdom of nature, 
in the constitution of the human mind, would perhaps justify 
an attempt by the wisdom of man to provide for it in the 
constitution of human law. "We do not instance, at present, 
certain other securities which have been instituted by the 
hand of nature, and which, if not traversed and enfeebled 



222 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



by a legislation wholly uncalled for, would of themselves pre- 
vent the extensive prevalence of want in society. These are 
the urgent law of self-preservation, prompting to industry 
on the one hand and to economy on the oth er ; and the 
strong law of relative affection— which laws, if not tampered 
with and undermined in their force and efficacy by the law 
of pauperism, would not have relieved, but greatly better, 
would have prevented the vast majority of those cases which 
fill the workhouses, and swarm around the vestries of Eng- 
land. Still these, however, would not have prevented all 
poverty. A few instances, like those which are so quietly 
and manageably, but withal effectually, met in the country 
parishes of Scotland, would still occur in every little com- 
munity, however virtuous or well regulated. And in regard 
to these, there is another law of the mental constitution, by 
which nature hath made special provision for them — even 
the beautiful law of compassion, in virtue of which the sight 
of another in agony, (and most of all perhaps in the agony 
of piniug hunger,) would, if unrelieved, create a sensation of 
discomfort in the heart of the observer, scarcely inferior to 
what he should have felt had the suffering and the agony 
been his own. 

6. But in England, the state, regardless of all the indices 
which nature hath planted in the human constitution, hath 
taken the regulation of this matter into its own hands. By 
its law of pauperism, j.t hath, in the first instance, ordained 
for the poor a legal property in the soil ; and thereby, run- 
ning counter to the strong possessory affection, it hath done 
violence to the natural and original distribution of the land, 
and loosened the secure hold of each separate owner on the 
portion w : hich belongs to him. And in the second instance, 
distrustful of the efficacy of compassion, it, by w r ay of help- 
ing forward its languid energies, hath applied the strong 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEING OE SOCIETY. 223 



hand of power to it. jS~ow it so happens, that nothing more 
effectually stifles compassion, or puts it to flight, than to be 
thus meddled with. The spirit of kindness utterly refuses 
tke constraints of authority ; and law in England, by taking 
the business of charity upon itself, instead of supplementing, 
hath well nigh destroyed the anterior provision made for it 
by nature — thus leaving it to be chiefly provided for by 
methods and by a machinery of its own. The proper func- 
tion of law is to enforce the rights of justice, or to defend 
against the violation of them ; and never does it make a more 
flagrant or a more hurtful invasion, beyond the confines of 
its own legitimate territory — than when, confounding hu- 
manity with justice, it would apply the same enforcements 
to the one virtue as to the other. It should have taken a 
lesson from the strong and evident distinction which nature 
hath made between those two virtues, in her construction of 
our moral system ; and should have observed a correspond- 
ing distinction in its own treatment of them — resentiug the 
violation of the one ; but leaving the other to the free inter- 
changes of goodwill on the side of the dispenser, and of 
gratitude on the side of the recipient. When law, distrustful 
of the compassion that is in all hearts, enacted a system of 
compulsory relief, lest, in our neglect of others, the indigent 
should starve — it did incomparably worse, than if, distrustful 
of the appetite of hunger, it had enacted for the use of food 
a certain regimen of times arid quantities, lest, neglectful of 
ourselves, our bodies might have perished. Nature has made 
a better provision than this for both these interests ; but 
law has done more mischief by interference with the one, 
than it could ever have done by interference with the other. 
It could not have quelled the appetite of huuger, which still, 
in spite of all the law's ofEciousness, would have remained 
the great practical impellant to the use of food, for the well- 



224 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



being of our physical economy. But it has done much to 
quell and to overbear the affection of compassion — that 
never-failing impellant, in a free and natural state of things, 
to deeds of charity, for the wellbeing of the social economy. 
The evils which have ensued are of too potent and pressing 
a character to require description. They have placed Eng- 
land in a grievous ^dilemma, from which she can only be 
extricated, by the new-modelling of this part of her statute- 
book, and a nearer conformity of its provisions to the prin- 
ciples of natural jurisprudence. Meanwhile they afford an 
emphatic demonstration for the superior wisdom of nature 
which is never so decisively or so triumphantly attested, as 
by the mischief that is done, when her processes are contra- 
vened or her principles are violated.* 

7. We are aware of a certain ethical system, that would 
obliterate the distinction between justice and humanity, by 
running or resolving the one into the other — affirming of 
the former, more particularly, that all its virtue is founded 
on its utility ; and that therefore justice, to which may be 
added truth, is no further a virtue than as it is instrumental 
of good to men — thus making both truth and justice mere 
species or modifications of benevolence. Now, as we have 
already stated, it is not with the theory of morals, but with 
the moral constitution of man that we have properly to do ; 
and most certain it is, that man does feel the moral right- 

* Without contending 1 for the language of our older moralists, the dis- 
tinction which they mean to express, by virtues of perfect and imperfect 
obligation, has a foundation in reality and in the nature of things — as 
between justice, where the obligation on one side implies a counterpart 
right upon the other, and benevolence, to which, whatever the obligation 
may be on the part of the dispenser, there is no corresponding right on the 
part of the recipient. The proper office of law is to enforce the former 
virtues. When it attempts to enforce the latter, it makes a mischievous 
extension of itself beyond its own legitimate boundarie 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEING OP SOCIETY. 225 



ness both of justice and truth, irrespective altogether of 
their consequences — or, at least, apart from any such view 
to these consequences at the time, as the mind is at all con- 
scious of. There is an appetite of our sentient nature which 
terminates in food, and that is irrespective of all its subse- 
quent utilities to the animal economy ; and there is an ap- 
petite for doing what is right, which terminates in virtue, 
and which bears as little respect to its utilities — whether 
for the good of self or for the good of society. The man 
whom some temptation to what is dishonourable would put 
into a state of recoil and restlessness, has no other aim, in 
the resistance he makes to it, than simply to make full ac- 
quittal of his integrity. This is his landing-place ; and he 
looks no farther. There may be a thousand dependent bless- 
ings to humanity from the observation of moral rectitude. 
But the pure and simple appetency for rectitude, rests upon 
this as its object, without any onward reference to the con- 
sequences which shall flow from it. This consideration 
alone is sufficient to dispose of the system of utility — as 
being metaphysically incorrect in point of conception, 
and incorrect in the expression of it. If a man can do vir- 
tuously, when not aiming at the useful, and not so much as 
thinking of it — then to design and execute what is useful, 
may be and is a virtue ; but it is not all virtue.* 

* If our moral judgment tell that some particular thing is right, without 
our adverting to its utility — then, though all that we hold to be morally 
right should be proved by observation to yield the maximum of utility, 
utility is not on that account the mind's criterion for the rightness of this 
particular thing, God has given us the sense of what is right ; and he 
hath besides so ordained the system of things, that what is right is gene- 
rally that which is most useful— yet in many instances, it is not the per- 
ceived usefulness which makes us recognise it to be right. We agree too 
with Bishop Butler in not venturing to assume that God's sole end in 
creation was the production of the greatest happiness. 

Q 



226 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



8. There is one way in which a theorist may take refuge 
from this conclusion. It is quite palpable, that a man often 
feels himself to be doing virtuously — when to all sense, he 
is not thinking of the utilities which follow in its train. 
But then it may be affirmed, that he really is so thinking— 
although he is not sensible of it. There can be little doubt 
of such being the actual economy of the world, such the ex- 
isting arrangement of its laws and its sequences — that virtue 
and happiness are very closely associated ; and that, no less 
in those instances where the resulting happiness is not at all 
thought of, than in those where happiness is the direct and 
declared object of the virtue. Who can doubt that truth 
and justice bear as manifold and as important a subserviency 
to the good of the species as beneficence does ? — and yet it 
is only with the latter that this good is the object of our 
immediate contemplation. But then it is affirmed, when two 
terms are constantly associated in nature, there must be as 
constant an association of them in the mind of the observer 
of nature— an association at length so habitual, and therefore 
so rapid, that we become utterly unconscious of it. Of this 
we have examples in the most frequent and familiar opera- 
tions of human life. In the act of reading, every alphabeti- 
cal letter must have been present to the mind— yet how many 
thousands of them, in the course of a single hour, must have 
passed in fleeting succession, without so much as one mo- 
ment's sense of their presence which the mind has any recol- 
lection of. And it is the same in listening to an acquaint 
tance, when we receive the whole meaning and effect of his 
discourse, without the distinct consciousness of very many 
of those individual words which still were indispensable to 
the meaning. Nay, there are other and yet more inscrutable 
mysteries in the human constitution ; and which relate, not 
to the thoughts that we conceive without being sensible of 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEIXGr OF SOCIETY. 



227 



them, but even to the volitions that we put forth, and to ver y 
mauv of which we are alike insensible. We have only to 
reflect on the number and complexity of those muscles which 
are put into action, in the mere processes of writing or walk- 
ing, or even of so balancing ourselves as to maintain a pos- 
ture of stability. It is understood to be at the bidding of 
the will that each of our muscles performs its distinct office ; 
and yet, out of the countless volitions, which had their part 
and their play, in these complicated, and yet withal most 
familiar and easily practicable operations — howmany there are 
which wholly escape the eye of consciousness ! And thus too, 
recourse may be had to the imagination of certain associating 
processes, too hidden for being the objects of sense at the 
time, and too fugitive for being the objects of remembrance 
afterwards. And on the strength of these it may be asked 
— how are we to know, that the utility of truth and justice 
is not present to the mind of man, when he discharges the 
obligation of these virtues ; and how are we to know, that it 
is not the undiscoverable thought of this utility, which forms 
the impellent principle of that undiscoverable volition, by 
which man is urged to the performance of them ? 

9. Xow we are precluded from replying to this question 
in any other way, than that the theory which requires such 
an argument for its support, may be said to fetch all its ma- 
terials from the region of conjecture. It ventures on the 
affirmation of what is going on in a terra incognita ; and we 
have not the means within our reach for meeting it in the 
terms of a positive contradiction. But we can at least say, 
that a mere argumentum ah ignorantia is not a sufficient 
basis on which to ground a philosophic theory ; and that 
thus to fetch an hypothesis from among the inscrutabilities 
of the mind, to speak of processes going on there so quick 
and so evanescent that the eye of consciousness cannot dis 



228 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



cover them — is to rear a superstructure, not upon the facts 
which lie within the limit of separation between the known 
and the unknown, but upon the fancies which lie without 
this limit. A great deal more is necessary for the establish- 
ment of an assertion, than that an adversary cannot disprove 
it. A thousand possibilities may be affirmed which are sus- 
ceptible neither of proof nor of disproof; and surely it 
were the worst of logic to accept as proof, the mere cir- 
cumstance that they are beyond the reach of disproof. 
They, in fact, lie alike beyond the reach of both ; in which 
case they should be ranked among the figments of mere 
imagination, and not among the findings of experience. 
How are we to know but that, in the bosom of our great 
planetary amplitude, there do not float, and in elliptic orbits 
round the sun, pieces of matter, vastly too diminutive for our 
telescopes ; and that thus the large intermediate spaces be- 
tween the known bodies of the system, instead of so many 
desolate blanks, are, in fact, peopled with little worlds — all 
of them teeming, like our own, with busy and cheerful ani- 
mation ? Now, in the powerlessness of our existing teles- 
copes, we do not know but it may be so. But we will not 
believe that it is so, till a telescope of power enough be in- 
vented, for disclosing this scene of wonders to our observa- 
tion. And it is the same of the moral theory that now 
engages us. It rests, not upon what it finds among the ar- 
cana of the human spirit, but upon what it fancies to be 
there ; and they are fancies too which we cannot deny, but 
which we will not admit — till, by some improved power of 
internal observation, they are turned into findings. We are 
quite sensible of the virtuousness of truth ; but we have 
not yet been made sensible, that we always recognise this 
virtuousness, because of a glance we have had of the utility 
of truth — though only perhaps for a moment of time, too 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBELSG OF SOCIETY. 229 

minute and microscopical for being noticed by the naked 
eye of consciousness. ~We can go no farther upon this 
question than the light of evidence will carry us. And 
while we both feel in our own bosoms, and observe in the 
testimony of those around us, the moral deference which 
is due to truth and justice— we have not yet detected this 
to be the same with that deference which we render to the 
virtue of benevolence. Or, in other words, we do vene- 
rate and regard these as virtues — while, for aught we know, 
the utility of them is not in all our thoughts. "We agree 
with Dugald Stewart in thinking, that, (i considerations of 
utility do not seem to us the only ground of the approba- 
tion we bestow on this disposition." He further observes, 
that, <; abstracting from all regard to consequences, there is 
something pleasing and amiable in sincerity, openness, and 
truth ; something disagreeable and disgusting in duplicity, 
equivocation, and falsehood. Dr. Hutcheson himself, the 
great patron of that theory which resolves all moral quali- 
ties into benevolence, confesses this — for he speaks of a 
sense which leads us to approve of veracity, distinct from 
the sense which approves of qualities useful to mankind."* 
10. However difficult it may be to resolve the objective 
question which respects the constitution of virtue in itself 
— in the subjective question, which respects the constitu- 
tion of the mind, we cannot but acknowledge the broad and 
palpable distinction, which the Author of our moral frame 
hath made, between justice and truth on the one hand, and 
beneficence on the other. And it had been well if law- 
givers had discriminated, as nature has done, between jus- 
tice and humanity — although the mischief of their unfortu- 
nate deviation serves, all the more strikingly, to prove the 

* Stewart's " Outlines of Moral Philosophy," Art. Veracity. 



230 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



adaptation of our moral constitution to the exigencies of 
human society. The law of pauperism hath assimilated 
beneficence to justice, by enacting the former, in the very 
way that it does the latter ; and enforcing what it has thus 
enacted by penalties. Beneficence loses altogether its pro- 
per and original character— when, instead of moving on the 
impulse of a spontaneous kindness that operates from 
within, it moves on the impulse of a legal obligation from 
without. Should law specify the yearly sum that must pass 
from my hands to the destitute around me— then, it is not 
beneficence which has to do with the matter. What I have 
to surrender, law hath already ordained to be the property 
of another ; and I, in giving it up, am doing an act of jus- 
tice, and not an act of liberality. To exercise the virtue of 
beneficence, I must go beyond the sum that is specified by 
law; and thus law, in her attempts to seize upon benefi- 
cence, and to bring her under rule, hath only forced her to 
retire within a narrower territory, on which alone it is that 
she can put forth the free and native characteristics which 
belong to her. Law, in fact, cannot, with any possible in- 
genuity, obtain an imperative hold on beneficence at all — 
for her very touch transforms this virtue into another. 
Should law go forth on the enterprise of arresting bene- 
ficence upon her own domain, and there laying upon her its 
authoritative dictates- — it would find that beneficence had 
eluded its pursuit ; and that all which it could possibly do, 
was to wrest from her that part of the domain of which it 
had taken occupation, and bring it under the authority of 
justice. When it thought to enact for beneficence, it only, 
in truth, enacted a new division of property ; and in so 
doing, it contravenes the possessory, one of nature's special 
affections— while, by its attempts to force what should have 
been left to the free exercise of compassion, it has done 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEI^G OE SOCIETY. 231 

much to supersede or to extinguish another of these affec- 
tions. It hath so pushed forward the line of demarcation, 
as to widen the space which justice might call her own, and 
to contract the space which beneficence might call her own. 
But never will law be able to make a captive of beneficence, 
or to lay personal arrest upon her. It might lessen and 
limit her means, or even starve her into utter annihilation, 
but never can it make a living captive of her. It is alto- 
gether a vain and hopeless undertaking to legislate on the 
duties of beneficence ; for the very nature of this virtue is 
to do good freely and willingly with its own. But on the 
moment that law interposes to any given extent with one's 
property, to that extent it ceases to be his own ; and any 
good that is done by it is not done freely. The force of law 
and the freeness of love cannot amalgamate the one with 
the other. Like water and oil they are immiscible. We 
cannot translate beneficence into the statute book of law, 
without expunging it from the statute book of the heart ; 
and, to whatever extent we make it the object of compul- 
sion, to that extent we must destroy it. 

11. And in the proportion that beneficence is put to flight, 
is gratitude put to flight along with it. The proper object 
of this emotion is another's good-will. But I do not hold 
as from the good-will of another, that which law hath enabled 
me to plead as my own right — nay, to demand, with a front 
of hardy and resolute assertion. It is this which makes it 
the most delicate and dangerous of all ground— when law 
offers to prescribe rules for the exercise of beneficence, or 
to lay its compulsory hand on a virtue, the very freedom of 
which is indispensable to its existence. And it not only 
extinguishes the virtue ; but it puts an end to all those 
responses of glad and grateful emotion, which its presence 
and its smile and the generosity of its free-will offerings 



232 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



awaken in society. It is laying an arrest on all the music 
of living intercourse, thus to forbid those beautiful and 
delicious echoes, which are reflected, on every visit of un- 
constrained mercy, from those families that are gladdened 
by her footsteps. And what is worse, it is substituting in 
their place, the hoarse and jarring discords of the challenge 
and the conflict and the angry litigation. "We may thus 
see, that there is a province in human affairs on which law 
should make no entrance — a certain department of human 
virtue wherein the moralities should be left to their own 
unfettered play, else they shall be frozen into utter apathy 
— a field sacred to liberty and good-will, that should ever 
be kept beyond the reach of jurisprudence ; or on which, 
if she once obtain a footing, she will spoil it of all those 
unbought and unbidden graces that natively adorn it. So 
that while to law we would commit the defence of society 
from all the aggressions of violence, and confide the strict 
and the stern guardianship of the interests of justice — we 
should tremble for humanity lest it withered and expired 
under the grasp of so rough a protector ; and lest before a 
countenance grave as that of a judge, and grim as that of 
a messenger-at-arms, this frail but loveliest of the virtues 
should be turned, as if by the head of Medusa, into stone. 

12. But there are other moral ills in this unfortunate 
perversion, beside the extinction of good-will in the hearts 
of the affluent, and of gratitude in the hearts of the poor — 
though it be no slight mischief to any community, that the 
tie of kindliness between these two orders should have been 
broken ; and that the business of charity, which when left 
spontaneous is so fertile in all the amenities of life, should 
be transformed into a fierce warfare of rights, from its very 
nature incapable of adjustment, and, whether they be the 
encroached upon or the repelled, subjecting both parties to 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEING OF SOCIETY. 233 

the sense of a perpetual violence. But over and above this, 
there are other distempers, wherewith it hath smitten the 
social economy of England, and of which experience will 
supply the English observer with many a vivid recollection. 
The reckless but withal most natural improvidence of those 
whom the state has undertaken to provide for, seeing that 
law hath proclaimed in their favour a discharge from the 
cares and the duties of self-preservation — the headlong 
dissipation, in consequence — the dissolution of family ties, 
for the same public and proclaimed charity which absolves 
a man from attention to himself will absolve him also from 
attention to his relatives — the decay and interruption of 
sympathy in all the little vicinities of town and country, for 
each man under this system of an assured and universal 
provision feels himself absolved too from attention to his 
neighbours. — These distempers, both social and economic, 
have a common origin ; and the excess of them above what 
taketh place in a natural state of things, may all be traced 
to the unfortunate aberration, which, in this instance, the 
constitution of human law hath made from the constitution 
of human nature. 

13. In our attempts to trace the rise of the possessory 
affection and of a sense of property, we have not been able 
to discover any foundation in nature, for a sentiment that 
we often hear impetuously urged by the advocates of the 
system of pauperism — that every man has a right to the 
means of subsistence. Nature does not connect this right 
with existence ; but with continued occupation, and with 
another principle to which it also gives the sanction of its 
voice — that, each man is legitimate owner of the fruits of 
his own industry. These are the principles on which nature 
hath drawn her landmarks over every territory that is 
peopled and cultivated by human beings. And the actual 



234 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



distribution of property is the fruit, partly of man's own 
direct aim and acquisition, and partly of circumstances over 
which he had no control. The right of man to the means 
of existence on the sole ground that he exists has been 
loudly and vehemently asserted; yet is a factitious senti- 
ment notwithstanding — tending to efface the distinctness 
of nature's landmarks, and to traverse those arrangements, 
by which she hath provided far better for the peace and 
comfort of society, nay, for the more sure and liberal support 
of all its members. It is true that nature, in fixing the 
principles on which man has a right to the fruits of the 
earth, to the materials of his subsistence, has left out certain 
individuals of the human family — some outcast stragglers, 
who, on neither of nature's principles, will be found pos- 
sessed of any right, or of any property. It is for their sake 
that human law hath interposed, in some countries of the 
world ; and, by creating or ordaining a right for them, has 
endeavoured to make good the deficiency of nature. But 
if justice alone could have ensured a right distribution for 
the supply of want, and if it must be through the medium 
of a right that the destitute shall obtain their maintenance 
—then would there have been no need for another principle, 
which stands out most noticeably in our nature ; and com- 
passion would have been a superfluous part of the human 
constitution. It is by means of this additional principle 
that nature provides for the unprovided — not by unsettling 
the limits which her previous education had established in 
all minds — not by the extension of a right to every man,-^ 
but by establishing in behalf of those some men, whom 
accident or the necessity of circumstances or even their own 
misconduct had left without a right, a compassionate interest 
in the bosom of their fellows. They have no advocate to 
plead for them at the bar of justice ; and therefore nature 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBELSG- OP SOCIETY. 235 



hath, furnished them with a gentler and more persuasive 
advocate, who might solicit for them at the bar of mercy ; 
and, for their express benefit, hath given to most men an 
ear for pity, to many a hand open as day for melting charity. 
But it is not to any rare or romantic generosity that she 
hath confided the relief of their wants. She hath made 
compassion one of the strongest, and, in spite of all the 
depravations to which humanity is exposed, one of the 
steadiest of our universal instincts. It were an intolerable 
spectacle even to the inmates of a felon's cell, did they 
behold one of their fellows in the agonies of hunger ; and 
rather than endure it, would they share their own scanty 
meal with them.* It were still more intolerable to the 
householders of any neighbourhood — insomuch that, where 
law had not attempted to supersede nature, every instance 
of distress or destitution would, whether in town or country, 
give rise to an internal operation of charity throughout 
every little vicinity of the land. The mischief which law 
hath done, by trying to mend the better mechanism which 
nature had instituted, is itself a most impressive testimony 
to the wisdom of nature. The perfection of her arrange- 
ments is never more strikingly exhibited than by those evils 
which the disturbance of them brings upon society — as when 

* The certainty of this operation is beautifully exemplified in a passage 
of Mr. Buxton's interesting- book on prisons— from which it appears that 
there is no allowance of food to the debtors, and a very inferior allowance 
of food to the criminals, who are confined in the jail at Bristol. The 
former live on their own means or the casual charity of the benevolent. 
Instances have occurred when both of these resources failed them — and 
starvation would have ensued, had not the criminals, rather than endure 
the neighbourhood of such a suffering-, shared their own scanty pittance 
along- with them — thus affording an argumentum a fort tore for a like 
strength of compassion throughout the land — seeing that it had survived 
the depraving process which leads to the malefactor's cell. 



236 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



her law in the heart has been overborne by England's 
wretched law of pauperism ; and this violation of the natural 
order has been followed up, in consequence, by a tenfold 
increase both of poverty and crime. 

14. It is interesting to pursue the outgoings of such a 
system ; and to ascertain whether nature hath vindicated her 
wisdom, by the evil consequences of a departure from her 
guidance on the part of man — for if so, it will supply another 
proof, or furnish us with another sight of the exquisite adap- 
tation which she hath established between the moral and the 
physical, or between the two worlds of mind and matter. 
Certain, then, of the parishes of England have afforded a 
very near exemplification of the ultimate state to which one 
and all of them are tending — a state which is consummated, 
when the poor-rates form so large a deduction from the rents 
of the land, that it shall at length cease to be an object to 
keep them in cultivation.* It is thus that some tracts of 
country are on the eve of being actually vacated by their pro- 
prietors ; and as their place of superintendence cannot be 
entered by others, who have no right of superintendence — 

* The following" is an extract from the report of a select committee on 
the poor-law, printed in 1817. " The consequences which are likely to 
result from this state of things, are clearly set forth in the petition from 
the parish of Wombridge in Salop, which is fast approaching* to this state. 
The petitioners state i that the annual value of lands, mines, and houses in 
this parish, is not sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing* poor, 
even if the same were set free of rent ; and that these circumstances will 
inevitably compel the occupiers of lands and mines to relinquish them ; 
and the poor will be without relief, or any known mode of obtaining" it, 
unless some assistance be speedily afforded to them/ And your committee 
apprehend, from the petition before them, that this is one of many parishes 
that are fast approaching- to a state of dereliction." 

The inquiries of the present Poor-law Commission have led to a still 
more aggravated and confirmed view of the evils of the system. 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEI^G OF SOCIETY. 237 

the result might be, that whole estates shall be as effectually 
lost to the wealth and resources of the country, as if buried 
by an earthquake under the water, or as if some blight of 
nature had gone over them, and bereft them of their powers 
of vegetation. Now we know not, if the whole history of 
the world furnishes a more striking demonstration than this, 
of the mischief that may be done by attempting to carry 
into practice a theoretical speculation, which, under the guise 
and even with the real purpose of benevolence, has for its 
plausible object, to equalise among the children of one com- 
mon humanity, the blessings and the fruits of one common 
inheritance. The truth is that we have not been conducted 
to the present state of our rights and arrangements respect- 
ing property, by any artificial process of legislation at all. 
The state of property in which we find ourselves actually 
landed, is the result of a natural process, under which all 
that a man earns by his industry is acknowledged to be his 
own — or, when the original mode of acquisition is lost sight 
of, all that a man retains by long and undisturbed possession 
is felt and acknowledged to be his own also. Legislation 
ought to do no more than barely recognise these principles, 
and defend its subjects against the violation of them. And 
when it attempts more than this — when it offers to tamper 
with the great arrangements of nature, by placing the rights 
and the securities of property on a footing different from that 
of nature — when, as in the case of the English poor-laws, it 
does so, under the pretence and doubtless too with the 
honest design of establishing between the rich and the poor 
a nearer equality of enjoyment ; we know not in what way 
violated nature could have inflicted on the enterprise a more 
signal and instructive chastisement, than when the whole 
territory of this plausible but presumptuous experiment is 
made to droop and to wither under it as if struck by a judg- 



238 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



ment from heaven — till at length, that earth out of which the 
rich draw all their wealth and the poor all their subsistence, 
refuses to nourish the children who have abandoned her ; 
and both parties are involved in the wreck of one common 
and overwhelming visitation. 

15. But we read the same lesson in all the laws and move- 
ments of political economy. The superior wisdom of nature 
is demonstrated in the mischief which is done by any aber- 
ration therefrom — when her processes are disturbed or in- 
termeddled with by the wisdom of man. The philosophy of 
free trade is grounded on the principle, that society is most 
enriched or best served, when commerce is left to its own 
spontaneous evolutions ; and is neither fostered by the arti- 
ficial encouragements, nor fettered by the artificial restraints, 
of human policy. The greatest economic good is rendered 
to the community, by each man being left to consult and to 
labour for his own particular good — or, in other words, a 
more prosperous result is obtained by the spontaneous play 
and busy competition of many thousand wills, each bent on 
the prosecution of his own selfishness, than by the anxious 
superintendence of a government, vainly attempting to me- 
dicate the fancied imperfections of nature, or to improve on 
the arrangements of her previous and better mechanism. It 
is when each man is left to seek, with concentrated and ex- 
clusive aim, his own individual benefit — it is then, that 
markets are best supplied ; that commodities are furnished 
for general use, of best quality, and in greatest cheapness 
and abundance ; that the comforts of life are most multi- 
plied ; and the most free and rapid augmentation takes place 
in the riches and resources of the commonwealth. Such a 
result, which at the same time not a single agent in this vast 
and complicated system of trade contemplates or cares for, 
each caring only for himself— strongly . bespeaks a higher 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEr>~G OF SOCIETY. 



239 



A^ent, bv whose transcendental wisdom it is, that all is made 
to conspire so harmoniously, and to terminate so beneficially. 
We are apt to recognise no higher wisdom than that of man, 
in those mighty concerts of human agency — a .battle, or a 
revolution, or the accomplishment of some prosperous and 
pacific scheme of universal education ; where each who shares 
in the undertaking is aware of its object, or acts in obedience 
to some master-mind who may have devised and who actuates 
the whole. But it is widely different, when, as in political 
economy, some great and beneficent end both unlooked and 
unlaboured for, is the result, not of any concert or general 
purpose among the thousands who are engaged in it— but 
is the compound effect, nevertheless, of each looking seve- 
rally, and in the strenuous pursuit of individual advantage, 
to some distinct object of his own. When we behold the 
working of a complex inanimate machine, and the usefulness 
of its products — we infer, from the unconsciousness of all its 
parts, that there must have been a planning and a presid- 
ing wisdom in the construction of it. The conclusion is not 
the less obvious, we think it emphatically more so, when, in- 
stead of this, we behold in one of the animate machines of 
human society, the busy world of trade, a beneficent result, 
an optimism of public and economical advantage, wrought 
out by the free movements of a vast multitude of men, not 
one of whom had the advantage of the public in all his 
thoughts. When good is effected by a combination of un- 
conscious agents incapable of all aim, we ascribe the combi- 
nation to an intellect that devised and gave it birth. When 
good is efiected by a combination of conscious agents capable 
of aim, but that an aim wholly difierent with each from the 
compound and general result of their united operations— this 
bespeaks a higher will and a higher wisdom than any by 
which the individuals, taken separately, are actuated. When 



240 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



we look at each striving to better his own condition, we see 
nothing in this but the selfishness of man. When we look 
at the effect of this universal principle, in cheapening and 
multiplying to the uttermost all the articles of human enjoy- 
ment, and establishing a thousand reciprocities of mutual 
interest in the world — we see in this the benevolence and 
comprehensive wisdom of God.* 

16. The whole science of Political Economy is full of 
those exquisite adaptations to the wants and the comforts of 
human life, which bespeak the skill of a master-hand, in the 
adjustment of its laws, and the working of its profoundly 
constructed mechanism. "We shall instance, first, that 
speciality in the law of prices, by which they oscillate more 
largely with the varieties in the supply of the necessaries, 
than they do in the mere comforts or luxuries of human life. 
The deficiency of one-tenth in the imports of sugar, would 
not so raise the price of that article, as a similar deficiency 
in the supply of corn, which might rise even a third in price, 
by a diminution of a tenth from the usual quantity brought 
to market. It is not with the reason, but with the beneficial 
effect of this phenomenon, that we at present have to do— 
not with its efficient, but with its final cause ; or the great 
and obvious utilities to which it is subservient. Connected 
with this law of wider variation in the price than in the 
supply of first necessaries, is the reason why a population 
survive so well those years of famine, when the prices per- 
haps are tripled. This does not argue that they must be 
therefore three times worse fed than usual. The food of 
the country may only, for aught we know, have been les- 
sened by a fourth part of the usual supply — or, in other 
words, the families may at an average be served with three- 

* See further upon this subject, Observations by Dr. Whately, Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, in his recent volume on Political Economy. 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEI^a OE SOCIETY. 241 

fourths of their usual subsistence, at the very time that the 
cost of it is three times greater than usual. And to make 
out this large payment, they have to retrench for the year 
in other articles — altogether, it is likely, to give tip the use 
of comforts ; and to limit themselves more largely in the 
second, than they can possibly do in the first necessaries of 
life — to forego perhaps many of the little seasonings, where- 
with they want to impart a relish to|their coarse and humble 
fare — to husband more strictly their fuel ; and be satisfied 
for a time with vestments more threadbare, and even more 
tattered, than what in better times they would choose to 
appear in. It is thus that, even although the first neces- 
saries should be tripled in price for a season, and although 
the pecuniary income of the labouring classes should not at 
all be increased — yet they are found to weather the hard- 
ships of such a visitation. The food is still served out to 
them at a much larger proportion than the cost of it would 
in the first instance appear to indicate. And in the second 
instance they are enabled to purchase at this cost, — because, 
and more especially if they be a well-habited and well-con- 
ditioned peasantry, with a pretty high standard of enjoyment 
in ordinary years, they have more that they can save and 
retrench upon in a year of severe scarcity. They can disen- 
gage much of that revenue which before went to the pur- 
chase of dress, and of various luxuries that might for a 
season be dispensed with ; and so have the more to expend 
on the materials of subsistence. It is this which explains 
how roughly a population can bear to be handled, both by 
adverse seasons and by the vicissitudes of trade ; and how, 
after all, there is a stability about a people's means, which 
will keep its ground against many checks, and amidst many 
fluctuations. It is a mystery and a marvel to many an ob- 
server, how the seemingly frail and precarious interest of 

n 



242 



AFFECTIONS "WHICH CONDUCE TO 



the labouring classes should, after all, have the stamina for 
such endurance, as to weather the most fearful reverses both 
of commerce and of the seasons, and that, somehow or other, 
we find, after an interval of gloomy suffering and still 
gloomier fears, that the families do emerge again into the 
same state of sufficiency as before. We know not a fitter 
study for the philanthropist than the working of that me- 
chanism by which a process so gratifying is caused, or in 
which he will find greater reason to admire the exquisite 
skill of those various adaptations that must be referred to 
the providence of Him who framed society, and suited so 
wisely to each other the elements of which it is composed. 

17. There is nought which appears more variable than the 
operation of those elements by which the annual supply of 
the national subsistence is regulated. How unlike in cha- 
racter is one season to another ; and between the extremes 
of dryness and moisture, how exceedingly different may be 
the amount of that produce on which the sustenance of man 
essentially depends. Even after that the promise of abun- 
dance is well nigh realized, the hurricane of a single day, 
passing over the yet uncut but ripened corn, or the rain of 
a few weeks, to drench and macerate the sheaves that lie 
piled together on the harvest- field, were enough to destroy 
the food of millions. "We are aware of a compensation, in 
the varieties of soil and exposure, so that the weather which 
is adverse to one part of the country might be favourable to 
another ; besides, that the mischief of a desolating tempest 
in autumn must only be partial, from the harvest of the 
plains and uplands falling upon different months. Still, 
with all these balancing causes, the produce of different 
years is very far from being equalized ; and its fluctuations 
would come charged with still more of distress and destitu* 
tion of families — were there not a counterpoise to the laws 



THE ECONOMIC TVELLBEI>~G OF SOCIETY. 



243 



of nature, in what may be termed the laws of political 
economy. 

18. The price of human food does not immediately depend 
on the quantity of it that is produced, but on the quantity 
of it that is brought to market ; and it is well that, in every 
year of scarcity, there should be instant causes put into 
operation for increasing the latter quantity to the uttermost 
— so as to repair as much as possible the deficiencies of the 
former. It is well that even a small short-coming in the 
crop should be so surely followed up by a great advance of 
prices ; for this has instantly the effect of putting the 
families of the land upon that shortness of allowance, which 
might cause the supply, limited as it is, to serve throughout 
the year. But, beside the wholesome restraint which is thus 
imposed on the general consumption of families, there is en- 
couragement given by this dearness to abridge the consump- 
tion upon farms, and by certain shifts in their management 
to make out the greatest possible surplus, for the object of 
sale and supply to the population at large. With a high, 
price, the farmer feels it a more urgent interest, to carry as 
much of his produce to market as he can ; and for this pur- 
pose, he will retrench to the uttermost at home. And he 
has much in his power. More particularly, he can and does 
retrench considerably upon the feed of his cattle ; and in as far 
as this wont to consist of potatoes or grain, there must an im- 
portant addition be gained in this way to the supplies of the 
market. One must often have been struck with the compara- 
tive cheapness of animal food in a year of scarcity. This is 
because of the greater slaughter of cattle which takes place in 
such a year, to save the heavy expense of maintaining them ; 
and which, besides affording a direct accession to the sus- 
tenance of man, lightens still more the farm consumption, 
and disengages for sale a still greater amount of the neces- 



244 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

saries of life. "We do not say but that the farm suffers a 
derangement by this change of regimen, from which it might 
take years to recover fully. But the evil becomes more 
tolerable by being spread. The horrors of extreme scarcity 
are prevented. The extremity is weathered at its farthest 
point. The country emerges from the visitation, and with- 
out, in all probability, the starvation of one individual ; and 
all because, from the operation of the causes that we have 
now explained, the supply of the market is made to oscillate 
within smaller limits than the crop — insomuch that though 
the latter should be deficient by one-third of the whole, the 
former might not be deficient by one-fifth or one-sixth of 
what is brought to market annually. 

19. This effect is greatly increased by the suspending of 
distillation in years of scarcity. And after all, should the 
supplies be yet very short, and the prices therefore far more 
than proportionally high, this will naturally and of itself 
bring on the importation of grain from foreign parts. If 
such be the variety of weather and soil, even within the 
limits of a country, as in some measure to balance the 
scarcity which is experienced in one set of farms, by the 
comparative abundance of another set — this will apply with 
much greater force to a whole continent, or to the world at 
large. If a small deficiency in home supply of grain induce 
a higher price than with other articles of commerce, this is 
just a provision for a securer and readier filling up of the 
deficiency by a movement from abroad — a thing of far greater 
importance with the necessaries than with the mere comforts 
or luxuries of life. That law of wider and more tremulous 
oscillation in the price of corn, which we have attempted to 
expound, is in itself a security for a more equal distribution 
of it over the globe by man, in those seasons when nature 
has been partial— so as to diffuse the more certainly and the 



THE ECONOMIC WELEBEEHg OF SOCIETY. 



245 



more speedily through the earth that which has been dropped 
upon it unequally from Heaven. It is well that greater 
efficacy should thus be given to that corrective force, by 
which the yearly supplies of food are spread over the world 
with greater uniformity than they at first descend upon it ; 
and, however much it may be thought to aggravate a people's 
hardships, that a slight failure in their home supply should 
create such a rise in the cost of necessaries — yet certainly it 
makes the impulse all the more powerful, by which corn flows 
in from lands of plenty to a land of famine. But what we 
have long esteemed the most beautiful part of this operation, 
is the instant advantage, which a large importation from 
abroad gives to our export manufacturers at' home. There 
is a limit in the rate of exchange to the exportation of arti- 
cles from any country ; but up to this limit, there is a class 
of labourers employed in the preparation of these articles. 
2s"ow the effect of an augmented importation upon the ex- 
change is such as to enlarge this limit — so that our export 
traders can then sell with a larger profit, and carry out a 
greater amount of goods than before, and thus enlist a more 
numerous population in the service of preparing them. An 
increased importation always gives an impulse to exportation, 
so as to make employment spring up in one quarter, at the 
very time that it disappears in another. Or, rather, at the 
very time when the demand for a particular commodity is 
slackened at home, it is stimulated abroad. We have already 
adverted to the way in which families shift their expenditure 
in a year of scarcity, directing a far greater proportion of it 
than usual to the first necessaries of life, and withdrawing it 
proportionally from the comforts, and even second necessaries 
of life. Cloth may be regarded as one of the second neces- 
saries ; and it were woeful indeed, if on the precise year 
when food was dearest, the numerous workmen engaged in 



246 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



this branch of industry should find that employment was 
scarcest. But in very proportion as they are abandoned by 
customers at home, do they find a compensation in the more 
quickened demand of customers from abroad. It is in these 
various ways that a country is found to survive so well its 
hardest and heaviest visitations ; and even under a triple 
price for the first articles of subsistence, it has been found to 
emerge into prosperity again, without an authentic instance 
of starvation throughout all its families.* 

20. "When any given object is anxiously cared for by a 
legislature, and all its wisdom is put forth in devising mea- 
sures for securing or extending it, — it forms a pleasing dis- 
covery to find, that what may have hitherto been the laborious 
aim and effort of human polioy, has already been provided 
for, with all perfection and entireness, in the spontaneous 
workings of human nature ; and that therefore, in this in- 
stance, the wisdom of the State has been anticipated by a 
higher wisdom— or the wisdom which presides over the ordi- 
nations of a human government, has been anticipated by the 
wisdom which ordained the laws of the human constitution. 
Of this there are manifold examples in political economy — 
as in the object of population, for the keeping up and increase 
of which, there was at one time a misplaced anxiety on the 
part of rulers ; and the object of capital for the preservation 
and growth of which there is a like misplaced anxiety, and 
for the decay and disappearance of which there is an equally 
misplaced alarm. Both, in fact, are what may be termed 
self-regulating interests — or, in other words, interests which 

* It is right to mention that the four preceding" paragraphs are taken 
in substance, and very much in language, from a former publication-^-as 
presenting a notable adaptation of external to human nature, which offered 
itself, in the course of other investigations, and at a time when we were 
not in quest of it. 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEI^a OE SOCIETY. 247 

result with so much certainty from the checks and the prin- 
ciples that nature hath already instituted, as to supersede all 
public or patriotic regulation in regard to either of them. 
This has now been long understood on the subject of popu- 
lation ; but it holds equally true on the subject of capital. 
There is, on the one hand, throughout society, enough of the 
appetite for enjoyment, to secure us against its needless ex- 
cess ; and, on the other, enough of the appetite for gain, to 
secure us against its hurtful deficiency. And, by a law of 
oscillation as beautiful as that which obtains in the planetary 
system, and by which, amid all disturbances and errors, it is 
upheld in its mean state indestructible and. inviolate — does 
capital, in like manner, constantly, tend to a condition of 
optimism, and is never far from it, amid all the variations, 
whether of defect or redundancy, to which it is exposed. 
"When in defect, by the operation of high prices, it almost 
instantly recovers itself — when in excess, it, by the operation 
of low profits, or rather of losing speculations, almost in- 
stantly collapses into a right mediocrity. In the first case, 
the'inducement is to trade rather than to spend ; and there 
is a speedy accumulation of capital. In the second case, the 
inducement is to spend rather than to trade ; and there is a 
speedy reduction of capital. It is thus that capital ever suits 
itself, in the way that is best possible, to the circumstances 
of the country — so as to leave uncalled for any economic re- 
gulation by the wisdom of man ; and that precisely because 
of a previous moral and mental regulation by the wisdom 
of Qod. 

21. But if any thing can demonstrate the hand of a 
righteous Deity in the nature and workings of what may 
well be termed a mechanism, the very peculiar mechanism of 
trade ; it is the healthful impulse given to all its movements, 
wherever there is a reigning principle of sobriety and virtue 



248 



AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 



in the land — so as to ensure an inseparable connection be- 
tween the moral worth and the economic comfort of a people. 
Of this we should meet with innumerable verifications in poli- 
tical economy — did we make a study of the science, with the 
express design of fixing and ascertaining them. There is one 
very beautiful instance in the effect, which the frugality and 
foresight of workmen would have, to control and equalize the 
fluctuations of commerce — acting with the power of a fly in 
mechanics; and so as to save, or at least indefinitely to 
shorten, those dreary intervals of suspended work or miserable 
wages, which now occur so often, and with almost periodic 
regularity in the trading world. What constitutes a sore 
aggravation to the wretchedness of such a season, is the 
necessity of overworking — so as, if possible, to compensate 
by the amount of labour for the deficiency of its remunera- 
tion ; and yet the inverse effect of this is augmenting and 
perpetuating that glut, or overproduction, which is the real 
origin of this whole calamity. It would not happen in the 
hands of a people elevated and exempted above the urgencies 
of immediate want ; and nothing will so elevate and exempt 
them, but their own accumulated wealth — the produce of a 
resolute economy and good management in prosperous times. 
Would they only save during high w^ages what they might 
spend during low wages — so as, when the depression comes, 
to slacken, instead of adding to their work, or even cease 
from it altogether— could they only afford to live, through 
the months of such a visitation, on their well-husbanded 
means, the commodities of the overladen market would soon 
clear away ; when, with the return of a brisk demand on 
empty warehouses, a few weeks instead of months would 
restore them to importance and prosperity in the common- 
wealth. This is but a single specimen from many others of 
that enlargement which awaits the labouring classes, after 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEING OE SOCIETY. 249 



that by their own intelligence and virtue they have won 
their way to it. "With but wisdom and goodness among the 
common people, the whole of this economic machinery would 
work most beneficently for them — a moral ordination, con- 
taining in it most direct evidence for the wisdom and good- 
ness of that Being by whose hands it is that the ma^hisery 
has been framed and constituted ; and who, the Preserver 
and Governor, as well as the Creator of His works, sits with 
presiding authority over all its evolutions. 

22. But this is only one specimen out of the many — the 
particular instance of a quality that is universal, and which 
may be detected in almost all the phenomena and principles 
of the science ; for throughout, political economy is but one 
grand exemplification^ the alliance, which a God of righte- 
ousness hath established, between prudence and moral 
principle, on the one hand, and physical comfort, on the 
other. However obnoxious the modern doctrine of popula- 
tion, as expounded by Mr. Malthus, may have been, and still 
is, to weak and limited sentimentalists, it is the truth which 
of all others sheds the greatest brightness over the earthly 
prospects of humanity — and this in spite of the hideous, the 
yet sustained outcry which has risen against it. This is a 
pure case of adaptation between the external nature of the 
world in which we live, and the moral nature of man, its 
chief occupier. There is a demonstrable inadequacy in all 
the material resources which the globe can furnish, for the 
increasing wants of a recklessly increasing species. But 
over and against this, man is gifted with a moral and a men- 
tal power, by which the inadequacy might be fully counter- 
vailed; and the species, in virtue of their restrained and 
regulated numbers, be upholden on the face of our world, in 
circumstances of large and stable sufficiency, even to the 



250 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

most distant ages. The first origin of this blissful consum- 
mation is in the virtue of the people ; but carried into sure 
and lasting effect by the laws of political economy, through 
the indissoluble connection which obtains between the wages 
and the supply of labour — so that in every given state of 
commerce and civilization, the amount of the produce of 
industry and of the product of the soil, which shall fall to 
the share of the workmen, is virtually at the determination 
of the workmen themselves, who, by dint of resolute pru- 
dence and resolute principle together, may rise to an inde- 
finitely higher status than they now occupy, of comfort and 
independence in the commonwealth. This opens up a cheer- 
ing prospect to the lovers of our race ; and not the less so 
that it is seen through the medium of popular intelligence 
and virtue — the only medium through which it can ever be 
realized. And it sheds a revelation, not only on the hope- 
ful destinies of man, but on the character of Grod — in having 
instituted this palpable alliance between the moral and the 
physical ; and so assorted the economy of outward nature to 
the economy of human principles and passions. The lights 
of modern science have made us apprehend more clearly by 
what steps the condition and the character of the common 
people rise and fall with each other — insomuch, that, while 
on the one hand their general destitution is the inevitable 
result of their general worthlessness, they, on the other, by 
dint of wisdom and moral strength, can augment indefinitely, 
not the produce of the earth, nor the produce of human 
industry, but that proportion of both which falls to their 
own share. Their economic is sure to follow by successive 
advances in the career of their moral elevation ; nor do we 
hold it impossible, or even unlikely— that, gaining, every 
generation, on the distance which now separates them from 



THE ECONOMIC WELLBEI^Gr OF SOCIETY. 



251 



the upper classes of society, they shall, in respect both of 
decent sufficiency and dignified leisure, make perpetual 
approximations to the fellowships and the enjoyments of 
cultivated life. 



CHAPTEE Yin. 

On the Relation in which the special Affections of our Nature 
stand to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration given forth 
by it, both to the Character of Man and the Character of 
God. 

1. There are certain broad and decisive indications of 
moral design, and so of a moral designer, in the constitution 
of our world, which, instead of expounding at great length, 
we have only stated briefly or incidentally, because, however 
effective as proofs, they possess a character of such extreme 
obviousness, as to require no anxious or formal explanation ; 
but, on the instant of being presented to their notice, are read 
and recognised by all men. One patent example of this in 
the constitution of man, is the force and prevalence of com- 
passion — an endowment which could not have proceeded from 
a malignant being ; but which evinces the Author of our 
nature to be himself compassionate and generous. Another 
example may be given alike patent and recognisable, if not 
of a virtuous principle in the human constitution, at least 
of such an adaptation of the external world to that consti- 
tution — that, with the virtuous practice which that principle 
would both originate and sustain, the outward and general 
prosperity of man is indispensably connected. We mean, 
the manifest and indispensable subserviency of a general 
truth in the world, to the general wellbeing of society. It 



252 BELATIOtf OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 



is difficult to imagine, that a God of infinite power and 
consummate skill of workmanship, but withal a lover of 
falsehood, would have devised such a world ; or rather, that 
he would not, in patronage to those of his own likeness, 
have ordered the whole of its system differently — so re- 
versing its present laws and sequences, as that, instead of 
honour and integrity, duplicity, disingenuousness, and fraud, 
should have been the usual stepping-stones to the possession 
both of this world's esteem and of this world's enjoyments. 
How palpably opposite this is to the actual economy of 
things, the whole experience of life abundantly testifies — 
making it evident, of individual examples, that the connec- 
tion between honesty and success in the world is the rule ; 
the connection between dishonesty and success is the ex- 
ception. But perhaps, instead of attempting the induction 
of particular cases, we should observe a still more distinct 
avowal of the character of God, of his favour for truth, and 
of the discountenance which he has laid upon falsehood, by 
tracing, which could be easily done in imagination, the 
effect it would have in society, if, all things else remaining 
unaltered, there should this single difference be introduced 
of a predominant falsehood, instead of a predominant truth 
in the world. The consequences of a universal distrust, in 
the almost universal stoppage that would ensue of the use- 
ful interchanges of life, are too obvious to be enumerated. 
The world of trade would henceforth break up into a state 
of anarchy, or rather be paralysed into a state of cessation 
and stillness. The mutual confidence between man and 
man, if not the mainspring of commerce, is at least the oil, 
without which its movements were impracticable. And 
were truth to disappear, and all dependence on human tes- 
timony to be destroyed, this is not the only interest which 
would be ruined by it. It would vitiate, and that incurably, 



OP OUR NATURE TO YIRTUE. 



253 



every social and domestic relationship ; and all the charities 
as well as all the comforts of life would take their departure 
from the world. 

2. Seeing then that the observation of honesty and truth 
is of such vital importance to society, that without it society 
would cease to keep together — it might be well to ascertain 
by what special provision it is in the constitution of man 
that the practice of these virtues is upheld in the world. 
Did it proceed in every instance from the natural power 
and love of integrity in the heart, we should rejoice in con- 
templating this alliance between the worth of man's cha- 
racter on the one hand ; and the security, as well as the 
abundance of his outward comforts, upon the other. And 
such, in fact, is the habitual disposition to truth in the 
world— that, in spite of the great moral depravation into 
which our species has obviously fallen, we probably do not 
overrate the proportion, when we affirm, that at least a 
hundred truths are uttered among men for one falsehood. 
But then, in the vast majority of cases, there is no tempta- 
tion to struggle with, nothing by which to try or to esti- 
mate the strength of the virtue — so that, without virtue 
being at all concerned in it, man's words might spontane- 
ously flow into the natural current of his ideas, of the 
knowledge or the convictions which belong to him. But 
more than this. Instead of selfishness seducing man, which 
it often does, from the observations of truth and honesty, 
it vastly oftener is on the side of these observations. 
Generally speaking, it is not more his interest that he should 
have men of integrity to deal with, than that he himself 
should, in his own dealings, be strictly observant of this 
virtue. To be abandoned by the confidence of his fellows, 
he would find to be not more mortifying to his pride, than 
ruinous to his prosperity in the world. We are aware that 



254* RELATION OE THE SPECIAL AEEECTIOKS 



many an occasional harvest is made from deceit and injus- 
tice ; but in the vast majority of cases, men would cease to 
thrive when they ceased to be trusted. A man's actual truth 
is not more beneficial to others, than the reputation of it is 
gainful to himself. And therefore it is, that, throughout 
the mercantile world, men are as sensitive of an aspersion 
on their name, as they would be of an encroachment on their 
property. The one, in fact, is tantamount to the other. It 
is thus, that, under the constraints of selfishness alone, 
fidelity and justice may be in copious and current observa- 
tion among men ; and while perhaps, the principle of these 
virtues is exceedingly frail and uncertain in all hearts — 
human society may still subsist by the literal and outward 
observation of them. 

3. Here then is the example, not of a virtue in principle, 
but of a virtue in performance, with all the indispensable 
benefits of that performance, being sustained on the soil of 
selfishness. "Were a profound observer of human life to take 
account of all the honesties of mercantile intercourse, he 
would find that, in the general amount of them, they were 
mainly due to the operation of this cause ; or that they were 
so prevalent in society, because each man was bound to their 
observance, by the tie of his own personal interest — inso- 
much that if this particular tie were broken, it would as 
surely derange or break up the world of trade, as the world 
of matter would become an inert or turbid chaos, on the 
repeal or suspension of the law of gravitation. Confidence, 
the very soul of commercial enterprise, and without which 
the transactions of merchandize were impossible, is the 
goodly result, not of that native respect which each man has 
for another's rights, but of that native regard which each 
man has for his own special advantage. This forms another 
example of a great and general good wrought out for society 



OE OUR NATUEE TO YIETUE. 



255 



— while each component member is intently set only on a 
distinct and specific good for himself— a high interest, which 
could not have been confided to human virtue : but which 
has been skilfully extracted from the workings of human 
selfishness. In as far as truth and justice prevail in the 
world, not by the operation of principle but of policy, in so 
far the goodness of man has no share in it : but so beneficent 
a result out of such unpromising materials, speaks all the 
more emphatically both for the wisdom and the goodness of 
God. 

4. But in this there is no singularity. Other examples 
can be named of God placing us in such circumstances, as to 
enlist even our selfishness on the side of virtuous conduct ; 
or implanting such special affections as do, by their own 
impulse, lead to that conduct, although virtuousness is not 
in all our thoughts. We are often so actuated, as to do 
what is best for society, at the very time that the good of 
society is forming no part of our concern ; and our footsteps 
are often directed in that very path, which a moral regard to 
the greatest happiness of the species would dictate — without 
any moral purpose having been conceived, or any moral prin- 
ciple been in exercise within us. It is thus that our resent- 
ment operates as a check on the injuriousness of others, 
although our single aim be the protection of our own in- 
terests — not the diminution of violence or injustice in the 
world : And thus too our own dread of resentment from 
others, works the same outward effect, which honour or 
a respect for their rights would have had upon our transac- 
tions, which delicacy or a respect for their feelings would have 
had upon our converse with those around us. It is in this 
way that God makes the wrath of man to praise Him ; and 
the same is true of other affections of our nature, which have 
less the character of selfishness than either anger or fear. It 



256 



BELATIOtf 03? THE SPECIAL AEEECTIONS 



is not because prompted by a sense of duty, but under the 
force of a mere natural proneness, that mothers watch so 
assiduously over the helplessness, and fathers toil so pain- 
fully for the subsistence of their children. Even compassion, 
with the speed and the discrimination of its movements, does 
for human life more than man is capable of doing with his 
highest efforts of morality and reason — yet, not in the shape 
of a principle, but in the shape of a strong constitutional 
propensity. The good is rendered, not by man acting as he 
thinks that he ought, or under the force of a moral sugges- 
tion ; but by man acting because he feels himself constrained, 
as if by the force of a physical necessity — not surely because, 
in the exercise of a sovereign liberty, he hath assumed a 
lordly ascendant over all the inferior passions of his nature ; 
but because himself is lorded over by a law of his nature 
having in it all the might and mastery of a passion. It is 
when in the contemplation of phenomena like these, we are 
enabled to view man as an instrument, that we are also led 
more clearly to perceive who the agent is — not the being 
who is endowed, but the Being who has endowed him. The 
instinct of animals is a substitute for their wisdom ; but, at 
the same time, a palpable demonstration of the wisdom of 
God. Man also has his instincts, which serve as the sub- 
stitutes of moral goodness in him ; but which therefore mark 
all the more strongly, by their beneficial operation, the good- 
ness of his Maker.* 

5. To see how widely these gifts or endowments of our 

* Dr. Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, has well remarked that 
— " though in accounting for the operations of hodies, we never fail to dis- 
tinguish the efficient from the final cause — in accounting for those of the 
mind, we are very apt to confound these two different things with one 
another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends 
which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are 
very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the senti- 



OF OVU KATTJKE TO VIRTUE. 



257 



nature by the hand of God, may stand apart from aught 
like proper goodness or virtue in the heart of man — we have 
only to witness the similar provision which has been made 
for the care and preservation of the inferior animals. The 
anger which arouses to defence against injury, and the fear 
which prompts to an escape from it, and the maternal affec- 
tion which nourishes and rears forward the successive young 
into a condition of strength and independence for the pro- 
tection of themselves — these all have their indispensable 
uses, for upholding and perpetuating the various tribes of 
living creatures, who at the same time are alike incapable of 
morality and reason. There is no moral purpose served by 
these implantations, so far at least as respects the creatures 
themselves, with whom virtue is a thing utterly incompetent 
and unattainable. In reference to them, they may be viewed 
simply as beneficent contrivances, and as bespeaking no other 
characteristic on the part of the Deity than that of pure 
kindness or regard for the happiness and safety, throughout 
their respective generations, of the creatures whom He has 
made. This might help us to distinguish between those 
mental endowments of our own species which have but for 
their object the comfort and protection, and those which 
have for their object the character of man. The former we 
have in common with the inferior animals : and so far they 
only discover to us the kindness of the divine nature, or the 
parental and benevolent concern which God takes in us. 
The latter are peculiar to our race, and are indicated by 
certain phenomena of our mental nature, in which the beasts 
of the field and the fowls of the air have no share with us — 
by the conscience within us, asserting its own rightful 
supremacy over all our affections and doings ; by our capa- 

ments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that 
to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. 

S 



258 



EELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 



cities for virtue and vice, along with the pleasures or the 
pains which are respectively blended with them ; and finally 
by the operation of habit, whose office like that of a school- 
master, is to perfect our education, and to fix, in one way or 
other, but at length unmovably, the character of its disciples. 
These present us with a distinct exhibition of the Deity, or 
a distinct and additional relation in which He stands to us, 
— revealing to us, not Him only as the affectionate Father, 
and ourselves only as the fondlings of His regard ; but him 
only as the great moral Teacher, the Lawgiver, and moral 
Governor of man, and ourselves in a state of pupilage and 
probation, or as the subjects of a moral discipline. 

6. And here it may be proper to remark, that we Under- 
stand by the goodness of God, not His benevolence or His 
kindness alone. The term is comprehensive of all moral 
excellence. Truth, and justice, and that strong repugnance 
to moral evil which has received the peculiar denomination 
of Holiness — these are all good moral properties, and so 
enter into the composition of perfect moral goodness. There 
are some who have analysed, or, in the mere force of their 
own wishfulness, would resolve the whole character of the 
Deity into but one attribute — that of a placid un distinguish- 
ing tenderness ; and, in virtue of this tasteful or sentimental 
but withal meagre imagination, would they despoil Him of 
all sovereignty and of all sacredness— holding Him forth as 
but the indulgent Father, and not also as the righteous 
Governor of men. But this analysis is as impracticable in 
the character of God, as we have already found it to be in 
the character of man.* Unsophisticated conscience speaks 
differently. The forebodings of the human spirit in regard 
to futurity, as well as the present phenomenon of human life, 
point to truth and righteousness, as distinct and stable and 



* Chap. vii. Art. 7. 



or ors HJiTUKE to viette. 



259 



independent perfections of the divine nature — however 
glossed or disguised they may have been, by the patrons of 
a mild and easy religion. In the various provisions of nature 
for the defence and security of the inferior animals, we may 
read but one lesson — the benevolence of its Author. In the 
like provisions, whether for the defence and prolongation of 
human life, or the maintenance of human society — we read 
that lesson too, but other lessons in conjunction with it. 
For in the larger capacities of man, and more especially in 
his possession of a moral nature, do we regard him as born 
for something ulterior and something higher than the pass- 
ing enjoyments of a brief and ephemeral existence. And so 
when we witness in the provisions, whether of his animal or 
mental economy, a subserviency to the protection, or even 
to the eujoyments of his transition state — we cannot discon- 
nect this with subserviency to the remoter objects of that 
ultimate state whither he is going. In the instinctive 
fondness of parents, and the affinities of kindness from the 
fellows of our species, and even the private affections of 
anger and fear, — we behold so many elements conjoined 
into what may be termed an apparatus of guardianship ; and 
such an apparatus has been reared by Providence in behalf 
of every creature that breathes. But in the case of man, 
with his larger capacities and prospects, the terminating ob- 
ject, even of such an intermediate and temporary apparatus, 
is not to secure for him the safety or happiness of the pre- 
sent life. It is to fulfil the period and subserve the purposes 
of a moral discipline. For meanwhile character is ripening ; 
and, whether good or bad, settling by the power and opera- 
tion of habit into a state of inveteracy — and so as to fix and 
prepare the disciples of a probationary state for their final 
destinations. "What to the inferior animals are the pro- 
visions of a life, are to man the accommodations of a journey 



260 



BELATI01S" Or THE SPECTAL AFFECTIONS 



In the one we singly behold the indications of a divine 
benevolence. "With the other, we connect the purposes of 
a divine administration ; and, beside the love and liberality 
of a Parent, we recognise the designs of a Teacher, and 
Governor, and Judge. 

7. And these special affections, though their present and 
more conspicuous use be to uphold the existing economy of 
life, are not without their influence and their uses in a sys- 
tem of moral discipline. And it is quite obvious, that, ere 
we can pronounce on the strict and essential virtuousness 
of any human being, they must be admitted into the reckon- 
ing. In estimating the precise moral quality of any bene- 
ficence which man may have executed, it is indispensable to 
know, in how far he was schooled into it at the bidding of 
principle, and in how far urged forward to it by the im- 
pulse of a special affection. To do good to another because 
lie feels that he ought, is an essentially distinct exhibition 
from doing the same good by the force of parental love, or of 
an instinctive and spontaneous compassion— as distinct as 
the strength of a constitutionally implanted desire is from 
the sense of a morally incumbent obligation. In as far as I 
am prompted to the relief of distress, by a movement of 
natural pity — in so far less is left for virtue to do. In so 
far as I am restrained from the outbreakings of an anger 
which tumultuates within, by the dread of a counter-resent- 
ment and retaliation from without — in so far virtue has less 
to resist. It is thus that the special affections may at once 
lighten the tasks and lessen the temptations of virtue ; and y 
whether in the way of help at one time or of defence at an- 
other, may save the very existence of a principle, which in 
its own unaided frailty, might, among the rude conflicts of 
life, have else been overborne. It is perhaps indispensable 
to the very being of virtue among men, that, by means of 



Or OUR MATURE TO VIRTUE. 



261 



the special affections, a certain force of inclination has been 
superadded to the force of principle — we doubt not, in pro- 
portions of highest wisdom, of most exquisite skill and 
delicacy. But still the strength of the one must be deducted, 
in computing the real amount and strength of the other ; 
and so the special affections of our nature not only sub- 
serve a purpose in time, but are of essential and intimate 
effect in the processes of our moral preparation, and will 
eventually tell on the high retributions and judgments of 
eternity. 

8. Man is not a utilitarian either in his propensities or in 
his principles. "When doing what he likes— it is not always, 
it is not generally, because of its perceived usefulness, that 
he so likes it. But his inclinations, these properties of his 
nature, have been so adapted both to the material world and 
to human society, that a great accompanying or great re- 
sulting usefulness, is the effect of that particular constitution 
which God hath given to him. And . when doing what he 
feels that he ought, it is far from always because of its per- 
ceived usefulness, that he so feels. But God hath so formed 
our mental constitution, and hath so adapted the whole 
economy of external things to the ] stable and everlasting- 
principles of virtue, that, in effect and historical fulfilment, 
the greatest virtue and the greatest happiness are at one. 
But the union of these two does not constitute their unity. 
Yirtue is not right because it is useful ; but God hath made 
it useful, because it is right. He both loves virtue, and 
wills the happiness of his creatures — this benevolence of 
will, being itself, not the whole but one of the brightest 
moralities in the character of the Godhead. He wills the 
happiness of man, but wills his virtue more ; and accord- 
ingly, hath so constructed both the system of humanity, and 
the system of external nature, that only through the me- 



262 



EELATT0N OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 



clium of virtue can any substantial or lasting happiness be 
realised. The Utilitarians have confounded these two 
elements, because of the inseparable yet contingent alliance 
which a God of virtue hath established between them. The 
Cosmopolites are for merging all the particular affections 
into one ; and would substitute in their place a general 
desire for the greatest possible amount of good to others, as 
the alone guide and impellent of human conduct. And the 
Utilitarians are for merging all the particular virtues into 
one ; and would substitute in their place the greatest use- 
fulness, as the alone principle to which every question 
respecting the morality of actions should be referred. The 
former would do away friendship and patriotism, and all the 
partialities or even instincts of relationship, from the system 
of human nature. The latter would at least degrade, if not 
do away, truth and justice from the place which t/hey now 
hold in the system of Ethics. The desolating effect of such 
changes, on the happiness and security of social life, which 
exhibit the vast superiority of the existent economy of things^ 
over that speculative economy into which these theorists 
would transform it ; or, in other words, would prove by how 
mighty an interval, the goodness and the wisdom of God 
transcended both the goodness and the wisdom of man. 

9. The whole of this speculation, if followed out into its 
just and legitimate consequences, would serve greatly to 
humble and reduce our estimate of human virtue. Nothing 
is virtuous but what is done under a sense of duty ; or done 
simply and solely because it ought. It is only in as far as 
this consideration is present to the mind, and is of practical 
and prevalent operation there — that man can be said to feel 
virtuously, or to act virtuously. "We should not think of 
affixing this moral characteristic to any performance, how- 
ever beneficial, that is done under the mere impulse of a 



OF OTJB KATTJKE TO TIETUE* 



263 



headlong sensibility, without any sense or any sentiment of 
a moral obligation. In every good action, that is named 
good because useful to society, we should subduct or sepa- 
rate all which is due to the force of a special affection, that 
we might precisely ascertain how much or how little remains, 
which may be due to the force of principle. The inferior 
animals, destitute though they be of a moral nature, and 
therefore incapable of virtue, share with us in some of the 
most useful and amiable instincts which belong to humanity ; 
and when we stop to admire the workings of nature's sen- 
sibility — whether in the tears that compassion sheds over 
the miseries of the unfortunate, or in the smiles and endear- 
ments which are lavished by a mother upon her infant 
family — we seldom reflect how little of the real and proper 
character of virtue is there. We accredit man, as if they 
were his own principles, with those instincts which the 
Divinity hath implanted within him ; and it aggravates the 
error, or rather the guilt of so perverse a reckoning — that, 
while we offer this incense to humanity, we forget all the 
while the hand of Him, by whom it is that humanity is so 
bountifully gifted and so beauteously adorned. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Miscellaneous Evidences of virtuous and benevolent Design, in 
the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Consti- 
tution of Man. 

1. It will be enough, if, after having led the way on a 
new territory of investigation, we shall select one or two 
out of the goodly number of iu stances, as specimens of the 
richness and fertility of the land. We have already endea- 



264 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



voured to prove, why a number of distinct benefits, even 
though reducible by analysis into one principle or law, still 
affords, not a solitary, but a multiple evidence, of the wise 
and benevolent Creator.* This evidence, in fact, is propor- 
tioned to the number, not of efficient but final causes in 
nature — so that each separate example of a good rendered 
to humanity, in virtue of its actual constitution, may be 
regarded as a separate and additional evidence of its having 
been formed by an artificer, at once of intelligent device and 
kind purposes. The reduction of these examples into fewer 
laws does not extenuate the argument for His goodness ; 
and it may enhance the argument for His wisdom. 

2. The first instance which occurs to us is that law of 
affection, by which its intensity or strength is proportioned 
to the helplessness of its object. It takes a direction down- 
wards ; descending, for example, with much greater force 
from parents to children, than ascending from children to 
parents back again — save when they lapse again into second 
infancy, and the duteous devoted attendance by the helpful 
daughters of a family, throughout the protracted ailments 
and infirmity of their declining years, instead of an excep- 
tion, is in truth a confirmation of the law — as much so, as 
the stronger attraction of a mother's heart towards the 
youngest of the family ; or, more impressive still, her more 
special and concentrated regard towards her sickly or de- 
crepit or even idiot boy. It is impossible not to recognize 
in this beautiful determination of nature, the benevolence of 
nature's God. 

3. Such instances could be greatly multiplied; and we 
invite the future explorers of this untrodden field to the task 
of collecting them. We hasten to instances of another kind, 



Introductory Chapter. Art. 27, 28, 29. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



265 



which we all the more gladly seize upon, as being cases of 
purest and strictest adaptation, not of the external mental, 
but of the external material world, to the moral constitution 
of man. 

4. The power of speech is precisely such an adaptation. 
Whether we regard the organs of utterance and hearing in 
man, or the aerial medium by which sounds are conveyed 
— do we behold a pure subserviency of the material to the 
mental system of our world. It is true that the great object 
subserved by it, is the action and reaction between mind and 
mind — nor can we estimate this object too highly, when we 
think of the mighty influence of language, both on the 
moral and intellectual condition of our species. Still it is 
by means of an elaborate material construction that this 
pathway has been formed, from one heart and from one un- 
derstanding to another. And therefore it is, that the faculty 
of communication by words, with all the power and flexi- 
bility which belong to it, by which the countless benefits of 
human intercourse are secured, and all the stores of senti- 
ment and thought are turned into a common property for 
the good of mankind, may well be ranked among the highest 
of the examples that we are now in quest of— it being in- 
deed as illustrious an adaptation as can be named of Exter- 
nal Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of 
Man. Of the converse of disembodied spirits we know 
nothing. But to man cased in materialism, certain material 
passages or ducts of conveyance, for the interchange of 
thought and feeling between one mind and another seem 
indispensable. The exquisite provision which has been made 
for these, both in the powers of articulation and hearing, as 
also in that intermediate element, by the pulsation of which, 
ideas are borne forward, as on so many winged messengers, 
from one intellect to another — bespeaks, and perhaps more 



266 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



impressively than any other phenomena in nature, the con- 
trivance of a supreme artificer, the device and finger of a 
Deity.* 

5. But articulate and arbitrary sound is not the only ve- 
hicle, either of meaning or sentiment. There is a natural 
as well as artificial language, consisting chiefly of expressive 
tones — though greatly reinforced both by expressive looks 
and expressive gestures. The voice, by its intonations alone^ 
is a powerful instrument for the propagation of sympathy 
between man and man ; and there is similarity enough be- 
tween us and the inferior animals, in the natural signs of 
various of the emotions, as anger and fear, and grief and 
cheerfulness, for the sympathy being extended beyond the 
limits of our own species, and over a great part of the sen- 
tient creation. We learn by experience and association the 
significancy of the merely vocal apart from vocables ; for 
almost each shade of meaning, at least each distinct sensi- 
bility, has its own appropriate intonation — so that, without 
catching one syllable of the utterance, we can, from its 
melody alone, often tell what are the workings of the heart, 
and even what are the workings of the intellect. It is thus 
that music, even though altogether apart from words, is so 
powerfully fitted, both to represent and to awaken the 
mental processes — insomuch that, without the aid of spoken 
characters, many a story of deepest interest is most im- 

* It will at once be seen that the same observations may be extended 
to written language, and to the fitness of those materials which subserve, 
through its means, the wide and rapid communication of human thoughts. 
We in truth could have multiplied indefinitely such instances of adapta- 
tion as we are now giving — but we judge it better to have confined our- 
selves, throughout the volume, to matters of a more rudimental and gene- 
ral character — leaving the manifold detail and fuller developments of the 
argument to future labourers in the field. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS . 



267 



pressively told, many a noble or tender sentiment is most 
emphatically conveyed by it. It says much for the native 
and original predominance of virtue — it may be deemed 
another assertion of its designed pre-eminence in the world, 
that our best and highest music is that which is charged 
with loftiest principles, whether it breathes in orisons of 
sacredness, or is employed to kindle the purposes and to 
animate the struggles of resolved patriotism ; and that never 
does it fall with more exquisite cadence on the ear of the 
delighted listener, than when, attuned to the home sympa- 
thies of nature, it tells in accents of love or pity, of its 
woes and its wishes for all humanity. The power and ex- 
pressiveness of music may well be regarded as a most beau- 
teous adaptation of External Nature to tbe Moral Con- 
stitution of Man— for what can be more adapted to his 
moral constitution, than that which is so helpful, as music 
eminently is, to his moral culture ? Its sweetest sounds 
are those of kind affection. Its sublimest sounds are those 
most expressive of moral heroism ; or most fitted to solem- 
nise the devotions of the heart, and prompt the aspirations 
and resolves of exalted piety. 

6. A philosophy of taste has been founded on this con- 
t3mplation ; and some have contended that both the beauty 
and sublimity of sounds are derived from their association 
with moral qualities alone. Without affirming that associa- 
tion is the only, or the universal cause, it must at least be 
admitted to have a very extensive influence over this class 
of our emotions. If each of the mental affections have its 
own appropriate intonation ; and there be the same or 
similar intonations given forth, either by the inanimate 
creation or by the creatures having life which are inferior 
to man — then, frequent and familiar on every side of him, 
must be many of those sounds by which human passions are 



268 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



suggested, and the memory of things awakened which are 
fitted to affect and interest the heart. And thus it is, that, 
to the ear of a poet, all nature is vocal with sentiment ; and 
he can fancy a genius or residing spirit, in the ocean, or in 
the tempest, or in the rushing waterfall, or in the stream 
whose softer murmurs would lull him to repose — or in the 
mighty forest, when he hears the general sigh emitted by 
its innumerable leaves as they rustle in the wind, and from 
whose fitful changes he seems to catch the import of some 
deep and mysterious soliloquy. But the imagination will 
be still more readily excited by the notes and the cries of 
animals, as when the peopled grove awakens to harmony ; 
or when it is figured, that, amid the amplitudes of savage 
and solitary nature, the lioness robbed of her whelps, calls 
forth the echoes of the wilderness — making it to ring with 
the proclamation of her WTongs. But, without conceiving 
any such rare or extreme sensibility as this, there is a 
common, an every- day enjoyment which all have in the 
sounds of nature ; and as far as sympathy with human 
emotions is awakened by them, and this forms an ingredient 
of the pleasure, it affords another fine example of an adap- 
tation in the external world to the mental constitution of 
its occupiers. 

7. But the same philosophy has been extended to sights 
as well as sounds. The interchange of mind with mind is 
not restricted to language. There is an interchange by 
looks also ; and the ever-varying hues of the mind are 
represented, not by the complexion of the face alone or the 
composition of its features, but by the attitude and gestures 
of the body. # It is thus that human sentiment or passion 

* We may here state that as the air is the medium by which sounds are 
conveyed — so light may be regarded as standing in the same relation to 
.those natural signs, whether of colour, gesture, or attitude, which are 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



269 



may come to be expressed by the colour and form, and even 
the motion of visible things ; by a kindred physiognomy for 
all the like emotions on the part of the inferior animals — 
nay, by a certain countenance or shape in the objects of 
mute and unconscious nature. It is thus that a moral 
investment sits on the aspects of the purely material world ; 
and we accordingly speak of the modesty of the violet, the 
innocence of the lily, the commanding mountain, the smiling 
landscape. Each material object has its character, as is 
amply set forth in the beautiful illustrations of Mr. Alison ; 
and so to the poet's eye, the whole panorama of nature is 
one grand personification, lighted up throughout by con- 
sciousness and feeling. This is the reason why in all lan- 
guages, material images and moral characteristics are so 
blended and identified. It is the law of association which 
thus connects the two worlds of sense and of sentiment. 
Sublimity in the one is the counterpart to moral greatness 
in the other ; and beauty in the one is the counterpart to 
moral delicacy in the other. Both the graceful and the 
grand of human character are as effectually embodied in the 
objects and scenery of nature, as in those immortal forms 
which have been transmitted by the hand of sculptors to 
the admiration of distant ages. It is a noble testimony to 
the righteousness of God, that the moral and the external 
loveliness are thus harmonised — as well as to the wisdom 
which has so adapted the moral and the material system to 
each other, that supreme virtue and supreme beauty are at 
one. 

addressed to the eye. Much could be said respecting 1 the adaptation of 
lig-ht to the moral constitution of man — arising- from tbe power which the 
very observation of our fellow- men has in repressing", so long- as we are 
under it, indecency or crime. The works of iniquity are Galled work6 of 
darkness. 



270 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



" Mind, mind alone, bear witness earth and heaven ! 
The living fountain, in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime. 
There hand in hand sit paramount the graces ; 
There enthroned, celestial Venus with divinest airs 
Invites the soul to never-fading joy." 

Akenside. 

8. And we may here remark a certain neglect of external 
things and external influences, which, however enlightened 
or transcendental] j rational it may seem, is at variance with 
truth of principle and sound philosophy. "We would in- 
stance the undervaluing of the natural signs in eloquence, 
although their effect makes all the difference in point of 
impression and power between spoken and written language 
— seeing that, superadded to articulate utterance, the eye 
and the intonations and the gestures also serve as so many 
signals of conveyance for the transmission of sentiment 
from one mind to another. It is thus that indifference to 
manner or even to dress, may be as grievous a dereliction 
against the real philosophy of social intercourse — as in- 
difference to the attitude and the drapery of figures would 
be against the philosophy of the fine arts. Both proceed 
on the forgetfulness of that adaptation, in virtue of which 
materialism is throughout instinct with principle, and both 
in its colouring and forms, gives forth the most significant 
expressions of it. On this ground too w r e would affirm, both 
of state ceremonial and professional costume, that neither 
of them is insignificant; and that he who in the spirit of 
rash and restless innovation would upset them, as if they 
were the relics of a gross and barbaric age, may be doing 
violence not only to the usages of venerable antiquity, but 
to the still older and more venerable constitution of human 
nature — weakening in truth the bonds of social union, by 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



271 



dispensing with certain of those influences which the Great 
Author of our constitution designed for the consolidation 
and good order of society. This is not accordant with the 
philosophy of Butler, who wrote on the " use of externals 
in matters of religion," nor with the philosophy of those 
who prefer the findings of experience, however irreducible 
to system they may be, to all the subtleties or simplifica- 
tions of unsupported theory.* 

9. Before quitting this subject, we remark, that it is no 
proof against the theory which makes taste a derivative from 
morality, that our emotions of taste may be vivid and power- 
ful, while our principles of morality are so weak as to have 
no ascendant or governing influence over the conduct. This 
is no unusual phenomenon of our mysterious nature. There 
is a general homage rendered to virtue in the world ; but it 
is the homage, more of a dilettanti than of an obedient and 
practical devotee. This is not more surprising, than that 
the man of profligate habits should have a tasteful admiration 
of sacred pictures and sacred melodies ; or that, with the 
heart of a coward, he should nevertheless catch the glow of 
at least a momentary inspiration from the music of war and 
patriotism. It seems the effect and evidence of some great 
moral derangement, that there should be such an incongruity 
in subjective man between his taste and his principles ; and 
the evidence is not lessened but confirmed, when we observe 
a like incongruity in the objective nature by which he is 
surrounded — we mean, between the external mental and the 
external material world. "We have only to open our eyes 
and see how wide, in point of loveliness, the contrast or 

* The perusal of those "works which treat scientifically of the fine arts, 
as Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses, is well adapted to rebuke and rectify 
the light estimation, in which all sensible accompaniments are apt to be 
held by us. 



272 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS . 



dissimilarity is, between the moral and the material of our 
actual contemplation — the one coming immediately from 
the hand of God ; the other tainted and transformed by the 
spirit of man. We believe with Alison and others, that, to 
at least a very great extent, much of the beauty of visible 
things lies in association ; that it is this which gives its 
reigning expression to every tree and lake and waterfall, and 
which may be said to have impregnated with character the 
whole of the surrounding landscape. How comes it then, 
that, in the midst of living society, where we might expect 
to meet with the originals of all this fascination, we find 
scarcely any other thing than a tame and uninteresting level 
of the flat and the sordid and the ordinary — whereas, in that 
inanimate scenery, which yields but the faint and secondary 
reflection of moral qualities, there is, on every line and on 
every feature, so vivid an impress of loveliness and glory ? 
One cannot go forth of the crowded city to the fresh and 
the fair of rural nature, without the experience, that, while 
in the moral scene there is so much to thwart and to revolt 
and to irritate — in the natural scene, all is gracefulness and 
harmony. It reminds us of the contrast which is sometimes 
exhibited, between the soft and flowery lawn of a cultivated 
domain, and the dark or angry spirit of its owner — of whom 
we might almost imagine, that he scowls from the battle- 
ments of his castle, on the intrusion of every unlicensed 
visitor. And again the question may be put — whence is it 
that the moral picturesque in our world of sense, as it beams 
upon us from its woods and its eminences and its sweet 
recesses of crystal stream or of grassy sunshine, should yield 
a delight so unqualified — while the primary moral charac- 
teristics, of which these are but the imagery or the visible 
representation, should, in our world of human spirits, be so 
wholly obliterated, or at least so woefully deformed ? Does 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



273 



it not look as if a blight had come over the face of our ter- 
restrial creation, which hath left its materialism in a great 
measure untouched, while it hath inflicted on man a sore 
and withering leprosy ? Do not the very openness and 
benignity which sit on the aspect of nature reproach him, 
for the cold and narrow and creeping jealousies that be at 
work in his own selfish and suspicious bosom ; and most 
impressively tell the difference between what man is, and 
what he ought to be ? 

10. There are certain other adaptations, but on which we 
forbear to expatiate.* Some of them, indeed, border on a 

* It must be obvious that we cannot exhaust the subject, but only 
exempli/// it, by means of a few specimens. There is an adaptation which 
had it occurred in time, might have been stated in^the text— suggested by 
the celebrated question respecting the liberty of the human will. We 
cannot but admit how much it would have deteriorated the constitution of 
humanity, or rather destroyed one of its noblest and most essential parts, 
had it been so constructed, as that either man was not accountable for his 
own actions, or that these actions were free in the sense contended for by 
one of the parties in the controversy — that is, were so many random con- 
tingencies which had no parentage in any events or influences that went 
before them, or occupied no place in a train of causation. Of the reasoners 
on the opposite sides of this sorely agitated question — the one contending 
for the moral liberty, and the other for the physical necessity of human 
actions — it is clear that there are many who hold the one to be destructive 
of the other. But what the wisdom of man cannot argumentatively 
harmonize in the world of speculation, the power and wisdom of God have 
executively harmonized in the world of realities — so that man, on the one 
hand, irresistibly feels himself to be an accountable creature ; and yet, on 
the other, his doings are as much the subject of calculation and of a 
philosophy, as many of those classes of phenomena in the material world, 
which, fixed and certain in themselves, are only uncertain to us, not 
because of their contingency, but because of their complication. We are 
not sure if the evolutions of the will are more beyond the reach of pre- 
diction than the evolutions of the weather. It is this union of the moral 
character with the historical certainty of our volitions, which has proved so 

T 



274 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



territory distinct from our own, if they do not altogether 
belong to it. The relation between food and hunger, be- 
tween the object and the appetite, is an instance of the 
adaptation between external nature and man's physical 
constitution — yet the periodical recurrence of the appetite 
itself, with its imperious demand to be satisfied, viewed as 
an impellent to labour even the most irksome and severe, 
has an important effect both on the moral constitution of 
the individual and on the state of society. The superficies 
of the human body, in having been made so exquisitely alive 
at every pore to the sensations of pain, may be regarded as 
nature's defensive covering against those exposures from 
without, which else might injure or destroy it. This is 
purely a physical adaptation, but it involves a moral adap- 
tation also ; for this shrinking and sensitive avoidance, at 
the first approaches of pain, affords a similar protection 
against certain hazards from within— as self-mutilation in 
the moment of the spirit's wantonness, or even self-destruc- 
tion in the moment of its despair. But, without enlarging 
further on specific instances, we shall now advert to one 
subject, furnished by the history of moral science; and 
replete, we have long thought, with the materials of a very 
strong and comprehensive argument. 

11. We have already adverted to the objective nature of 
virtue, and the subjective nature of man, as forming two 
wholly distinct objects of contemplation. It is the latter 
and not the former which indicates the moral character of 

puzzling- to many of our controversialists ; but in proportion to the diffi- 
culty felt by us in the adjustment of these two elements, should be our 
admiration of that profound and exquisite skill which has mastered the 
apparent incongruity — so that while every voluntary action of man is, in 
point of reckoning", the subject of a moral, it is in point of result, no less 
the subject of a physical law. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



275 



G-od. The mere system of ethical doctrine is no more fitted 
to supply an argument for this character, than would the 
system of geometry. It is not geometry in the abstract, 
but geometry as embodied in the heavens, or in the exquisite 
structures of the terrestrial physics — which bespeaks the 
skill of the Artificer who framed them. In like manner it 
is not moral science in the abstract, but the moral consti- 
tution of beings so circumstanced and so made, that virtue 
is the only element in which their permanent individual or 
social happiness can be realized — which bespeaks the great 
Parent of the human family to be himself the lover and the 
exemplar of righteousness. In a word, it is not from an 
abstraction, but from the facts of a creation, that our lesson 
respecting the Divine character, itself a fact, is to be learned ; 
and it is by keeping this distinction in view, that we obtain 
one important help for drawing from the very conflict and 
diversity of moral theories, on the nature of virtue, a clear, 
nay, a cumulative argument for the virtuous nature of the 
Godhead. 

12. The painful suspicion is apt to intrude upon us, that 
virtue may not be a thing of any substance or stability at all 
— when we witness the confusion and the controversy into 
which moralists have fallen, on the subject of its elementary 
principles. But, to allay this feeling, it should be observed, 
in the first place, that, with all the perplexity which obtains 
on the question of what virtue, in the abstract or in its own 
essential constituting quality, is — there is a pretty general 
agreement among moralists, as to what the separate and spe- 
cific virtues of the human character are. According to the 
selfish system, temperance may be a virtue, because of its 
subservience to the good of the individual ; while by the 
system of utility it is a virtue, because through its observa- 
tion, our powers and services are kept entire for the good of 



276 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



society. But again, beside this controversy which relates to 
the nature of virtue in itself, and which may be termed the 
objective question in morals — there is a subjective or an or- 
ganic question which relates, not to the existence, but to the 
origin and formation of the notion or feeling of virtue in the 
human mind. The question, for example, whether virtue 
be a thing of opinion or a thing of sentiment, belongs to this 
class. Tsow, in regard to all those questions which respect 
the origin or the pedigree of our moral judgments, it should 
not be forgotten, that, while the controvertists are at issue 
upon this, they are nearly unanimous, as to morality itself 
being felt by the mind as a matter of supreme obligation. 
They dispute about the moral sense of man, or about the 
origin and constitution of the court of conscience ; but they 
have no dispute about the supreme authority of conscience 
— even as, in questions of civil polity and legislation, there 
may be no dispute about the rightful authority of some cer- 
tain court while there may be antiquarian doubts and dif- 
ferences on the subject of its origin and formation. Dr. Smith, 
for example, while he has his own peculiar views on the 
origin of our moral principles, never questions their autho- 
rity. He differs from others, in regard to the rationale, or 
the anterior steps of that process, w ? hich at length termi- 
nates in a decision of the mind, on the merit or demerit of 
a particular action. The rightness and the supremacy of 
that decision are not in the least doubted by him. There 
may be a metaphysical controversy about the mode of arriving 
at our moral judgment, and at the same time a perfect con- 
currence in it as the guide and the regulator of human 
conduct — just as there may be an anatomical controversy 
about the structure of the eye or the terminations of the 
optic ners^e, and a perfect confidence with all parties, in the 
correctness of those intimations which the eye gives of the 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



277 



position of external objects and their visible properties. By 
attending to this we obtain a second important help for eli- 
citing from the diversity of theories on the nature of virtue, 
a cumulative argument for the virtuous nature of the 
Godhead. 

13. When the conflict then of its opposing theories, 
would seem to bring fearful insecurity on moral science, let 
it not be forgotten, that the very multitude of props and 
securities, by which virtue is upholden, is that which has 
given rise to the conflict. There is little or no scepticism 
in regard to the worth or substantive being of morality, but 
chiefly in regard to its sustaining principle ; and it is be- 
cause of so much to sustain it, or of the many distinct and 
firm props which it rests upon, that there has been such an 
amount of ethical controversy in the world. There has 
been many a combat, and many a combatant — not because 
of the baselessness of morality, but because it rests on a 
basis of so many goodly pillars, and because of such a varied 
convenience and beauty in the elevation of the noble fabric. 
The reason of so much controversy is, that each puny con- 
troversialist, wedded to his own exclusive view of an edifice 
too mighty and majestic for his grasp, has either selected 
but one of the upholding props, and affirmed it to be 
the only support of the architecture ; or attended to but 
one of its graces and utilities, and aflirmed it to be the 
alone purpose of the magnificent building. The argument 
of each, whether on the foundation of virtue or on its 
nature, when beheld aright, will be found a distinct trophy 
to its worth — for each can plead some undoubted excellence 
or good effect of virtue in behalf of his own theory. Each 
may have so magnified the property which himself had 
selected— as that those properties of virtue which others 
had selected, were thrown into the shade, or at most but 
admitted as humble attendants, in the retinue of his own 



278 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



great principle. And so the controversy is not, whether 
morality be a solidly constituted fabric ; but what that is 
which constitutes its solidity, and which should be singled 
out as the keystone of the fabric. Each of the champions 
in this warfare has fastened on a different keystone ; and 
each pushes the triumph against his adversary by a demon- 
stration of its firmness. Or in other words, virtue is com- 
passed about with such a number of securities, and pos- 
sesses such a superabundance of strength, as to have given 
room for the question that was raised about Samson of 
old — what that is wherein its great strength lies. It is like 
the controversy which sometimes arises about a building of 
perfect symmetry — when sides are taken, and counter ex- 
planations are advanced and argued, about the one charac- 
teristic or constituting charm, which hath conferred upon it 
so much gracefulness. It is even so of morality. Each 
partisan hath advocated his own system ; and each, in doing 
so, hath more fully exhibited some distinct property or per- 
fection of moral rectitude. Morality is not neutralized by 
this conflict of testimonies ; but rises in statelier pride, and 
with augmented security, from the foam and the turbulence 
which play around its base. To her, this conflict yields, 
not a balance, but a summation of testimonies ; and, instead 
of an impaired, it is a cumulative argument, that may be 
reared out of the manifold controversies to which she has 
given rise. Eor when it is asserted by one party in the 
strife, that the foundation of all morality is the right of 
God to the obedience of his creatures — let God's absolute 
right be fully conceded to them. And when others reply, 
that, apart from such right, there is a native aud essential 
rightness in morality, let this be conceded also. There is 
indeed such a rightness, which, anterior to law, hath had 
everlasting residence in the character of the Godhead ; and 
which prompted him to a law, all whose enactments bear 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS* 



279 



the impress of purest morality. And when the advocates 
of the selfish system affirm, that the good of self is the sole 
aim and principle of virtue ; while we refuse their theory, 
let us at least admit the fact to which all its plausibility 
is owing — that nought conduces more surely to happiness, 
than the strict observation of all the recognised moralities 
of human conduct. And when a fourth party affirms that 
nought but the useful is virtuous ; and, in support of their 
theory, can state the unvarying tendencies of virtue in the 
world towards the highest good of the human family— let it 
forthwith be granted, that the same God, who blends in his 
own person both the righteousness of morality and the 
right of law, that He hath so devised the economy of things, 
and so directs its processes as to make peace and prosperity 
follow in the train of righteousness. And when the posi- 
tion that virtue is its own reward, is cast as another dogma 
into the whirlpool of debate, let it be fondly allowed, that 
the God, who delights in moral excellence himself, hath 
made it the direct minister of enjoyment to him, who, formed 
after his own image, delights in it also. And when others, ex- 
patiating on the beauty of virtue, would almost rank it among 
the objects of taste rather than of principle— let this be fol- 
lowed up by the kindred testimony, that, in all its exhibitions, 
there is indeed a supreme gracefulness ; and that God, rich 
and varied in all the attestations which He has given of His 
regard to it, hath so endowed His creatures, that, in moral 
worth, they have the beatitudes of taste as well as the beati- 
tudes of conscience. And should there be philosophers who 
say of morality that it is wholly founded upon the emotions — 
let it at least be granted, that He whose hand did frame our 
internal mechanism, has attuned it in the most correct and 
delicate respondency, with all the moralities of which human 
nature is capable. And should there be other philosophers 



280 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



who affirm that morality hath a real and substantive exist- 
ence in the nature of things, so as to make it as much an 
object of judgment distinct from him who judges, as are the 
eternal and immutable truths of geometry — let it with 
gratitude be acknowledged that the mind is so constituted as 
to have the same firm hold of the moral which it has of the 
mathematical relations ; and if this prove nothing else, it at 
least proves, that the Author of our constitution hath stamped 
there a clear and legible impress on the side of virtue. We 
should not exclude from this argument even the degrading 
systems of Hobbes and Mandeville ; the former representing 
virtue as the creation of human policy, and the latter repre- 
senting its sole principle to be the love of human praise — for 
even they tell thus much, the one that virtue is linked with 
the wellbeing of the community, the other that it has an echo 
in every bosom. We would not dissever all these testi- 
monies ; but bind them together into the sum and strength 
of a cumulative argument. The controversialists have lost 
themselves, but it is in a wilderness of sweets — out of which 
the materials might be gathered, of such an incense at the 
shrine of morality, as should be altogether overpowering. 
Each party hath selected but one of its claims ; and in the 
anxiety to exalt it, would shed a comparative obscurity over 
all the rest. This is the contest between them — not whether 
morality be destitute of claims ; but what, out of the number 
that she possesses, is the great and pre-eminent claim on 
which man should do her homage. Their controversy per- 
haps never may be settled ; but to make the cause of virtue 
suffer on this account, would be to make it suffer from the 
very force and abundance of its recommendations. 

14. But this contemplation is pregnant with another 
inference, beside the worth of virtue — even the righteous 
character of Him, who, for the sake of upholding it hath 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



281 



brought such a number of contingencies together. When 
we look to the systems of utility and selfishness, let us look 
upwardly to Him, through whose ordination alone it is, that 
virtue hath such power to prosper the arrangement of life 
and of society. Or when told of the principle that virtue is 
its own reward, let us not forget Him, who so constituted 
our moral nature, as to give the feeling of an exquisite 
charm, both in the possession of virtue and in the contem- 
plation of it. Or when the theory of a moral sense offers 
itself to our regards, let us bear regard along with it to that 
God, who constructed this organ of the inner man, and en- 
dowed it with all its perceptions and all its feelings. In the 
utility wherewith he hath followed up the various observa- 
tions of moral rectitude ; in the exquisite relish which He 
hath infused into the rectitude itself ; in the law of con- 
formity thereto which He hath written on the hearts of all 
men; in the aspect of eternal and unchangeable fitness, 
under which he hath made it manifest to every conscience — 
in these we behold the elements of many a controversy on 
the nature of virtue ; but in these, when viewed aright, we 
also behold a glorious harmony of attestations to the nature 
of God. It is thus that the perplexities of the question , 
when virtue is looked to as but a thing of earthly residence, 
are all done away, when we carry the speculation upward to 
heaven. They find solution there ; and cast a radiance over 
the character of Him who hath not only established in righte- 
ousness His throne, but, by means of a rich and varied 
adaptation, hath profusely shed over the universe that He 
hath formed, the graces by which he would adorn, and the 
beatitudes by which He would reward it. 

15. Although the establishment of a moral theory is net 
now our proper concern, we may nevertheless take the 
opportunity of expressing our dissent from the system of 



282 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



those who would resolve virtue, not into any native or inde- 
pendent Tightness of its own, but into the will of Him who 
has a right to all our services. "Without disparagement to 
the Supreme Being, it is not His law which constitutes 
virtue ; but, far higher homage both to Him and to His law, 
the law derives all its authority and its being from a virtue 
of anterior residence in the character of the Divinity* It is 
not by the authority of any law over Him, that truth and 
justice and goodness, and all the other perfections of supreme 
moral excellence, have, in His person, had their everlasting 
residence. He had a nature, before that he uttered it forth 
into a law. Previous to creation, there existed in His mind, 
all those conceptions of the great and the graceful, which he 
hath embodied into a gorgeous universe ; and of which every 
rude sublimity of the wilderness, or every fair and smiling 
landscape, gives such vivid representation. And in like 
manner, previous to all government, there existed in His 
mincl those principles of righteousness, which afterwards, 
with the right of an absolute sovereign, He proclaimed into 
a law. Those virtues of which we now read on a tablet of 
jurisprudence were all transcribed and taken off from the 
previous tablet of the divine character, The law is but a 
reflection of this character. In the fashioning of law, He 
pictured forth Himself; and we, in the act of observing His 
law, are only conforming ourselves to His likeness. It is 
there that we are to look for the primeval seat of moral 
goodness. Or, in other words, virtue has an inherent 
character of her own — apart from law, and anterior to all 
jurisdiction. 

16. Yet the right of God to command, and the rightness 
of His commandments, are distinct elements of thought, and 
should not be merged into one another. We should not lose 
sight of the individuality of each, nor identify these two 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 



283 



things— because, instead of antagonists, they do in fact 
stand side by side, and act together in friendly co-operation. 
Because two influences are conjoined in agency, that is no 
reason why they should be confounded in thought. Their 
union does not constitute their unity — and though, in the 
conscience of man, there be an approbation of all rectitude, 
and all rectitude be an obligation laid upon the conduct of 
man by the divine law — yet still the approbation of man's 
moral nature is one thing, and the obligation of God's 
authority is another. 

17. That there is an approval of rectitude, apart from all 
legal sanctions and legal obligations, there is> eternal and 
unchangeable demonstration in the character of God himself. 
He is under no law, and owns the authority of no superior. 
It is not by the force of sanctions, but by the force of sen- 
timents that the Divinity is moved. Morality with Him is 
not of prescription, but of spontaneous principle alone ; and 
He acts virtuously, not because He is bidden, but because 
virtue hath its inherent and eternal residence in his own 
nature. Instead of deriving morality from law, we should 
derive law, even the law of God, from the primeval morality 
of His own character ; and so far from looking upwardly to 
His law as the fountain of morality, do we hold it to be the 
emanation from a higher fountain that is seated in the depths 
of His unchangeable essence, and is eternal as the nature of 
the Godhead. 

18. The moral hath antecedency over the juridical. God 
acts righteously, not because of jurisdiction by another, but 
because of a primary and independent justice in Himself. 
It was not law which originated the moralities of the divine 
character ; but these moralities are self-existent and eternal 
as is the being of the Godhead. The virtues had all their 
dwelling-place in the constitution of the Divinity — ere He 



284 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE "WORLD FOR 



stamped the impress of them on a tablet of jurisprudence. 
There was an inherent, before there was a preceptive morality ; 
and righteousness and goodness and truth, which all are im- 
perative enactments of law, were all prior characteristics, in 
the underived and uncreated excellence of the Lawgiver. 



CHAPTER X. 

On the Capacities of the World for making a virtuous Species 
happy ; and the Argument deducible from this, both for 
the Character of God and the Immortality of Man. 

1. [We shall now attempt to unfold the most general and 
comprehensive of all our adaptations ; and which we at the 
same time think the most decisive of any in establishing the 
righteousness of the divine character.] 

2. We have already stated the distinction between the 
theology of those who would make the divine goodness con- 
sist of all moral excellence ; and of those who would make 
it consist of benevolence alone. Attempts have been made 
to simplify the science of morals, by the reduction of its 
various duties or obligations into one element — as when it is 
alleged, that the virtuousness of every separate morality is 
reducible into benevolence, which is regarded as the central^ 
or as the great master and generic virtue that is comprehen- 
sive of them all. There is a theoretic beauty in this imagi- 
nation—yet it cannot be satisfactorily established, by all our 
powers of moral or mental analysis. We cannot rid ourselves 
of the obstinate impression, that there is a distinct and native 
virtuousness, both in truth and in justice, apart from their 
subserviency to the good of men ; and accordingly, in the 
ethical systems of all our most orthodox expounders, they 



MAKTPTG A VIBTUOTTS SPECIES HAPPY. 



2S5 



are done separate homage to — as virtues standing forth in 
their own independent character, and having their own inde- 
pendent claims both on the reverence and observation of 
mankind. JS*ow, akin with this attempt to generalize the 
whole of virtue into one single morality is the attempt to gene- 
ralize the character of God into one single moral perfection. 
Truth and justice have been exposed to the same treatment in 
the one contemplation as in the other — that is, regarded more 
as derivatives from the higher characteristic of benevolence, 
than as distinct and primary characteristics themselves. The 
love of philosophic simplicity may have led to this in the 
abstract or moral question ; but something more has operated 
in the theological question. It falls in with a still more 
urgent affection than the taste of man : it falls in with his 
hope and his sense of personal interest, that the truth and 
justice of the Divinity should be removed, as it were, to the 
back-ground of his perspective. And, accordingly, this in- 
clination to soften, if not to suppress the sterner perfections 
of righteousness and holiness appears, not merely in the 
pleasing and poetic effusions of the sentimental, but also in 
the didactic expositions of the academic theism. It is thus 
that Paley, so full and effective and able in his demonstration 
of the natural, is yet so meagre in his demonstration of the 
moral attributes. It is, in truth, the general defect, not of 
natural theology itself — but of natural theology, as set forth 
at the termination of ethical courses, or as expounded in the 
schools. In this respect, the natural theology of the heart 
is at variance with the natural theology of our popular and 
prevailing literature. The one takes its lesson direct from 
conscience, which depones to the authority of truth and 
justice, as distinct frcm benevolence ; and carries this lesson 
upwards, from that tablet of virtue which it reads on the na- 
ture of man below, to that higher tablet upon which it reads 



286 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 



the character of God above. The other, again, of more lax 
and adventurous speculation, would fain amalgamate all the 
qualities of the Godhead into one ; and would make that one 
the beautiful and undistinguishing quality of tenderness. It 
would sink the venerable or the awful into the lovely ; and to 
this it is prompted, not merely for the sake of theoretic sim- 
plicity — but in order to quell the alarms of nature, the dread 
and the disturbance which sinners feel, when they look to 
their Sovereign in heaven, as a God of judgment and of un- 
spotted holiness. Nevertheless, the same conscience which 
tells what is sound in ethics, is ever and anon suggesting 
what is sound in theology— that we have to do with a God 
of truth, that we have to do with a God of righteousness ; 
and this lesson is never perhaps obliterated in any breast, by 
the imagery, however pleasing, of a universal parent, throned 
in soft and smiling radiance, and whose supreme delight is to 
scatter beatitudes innumerable through a universal family. 
We cannot forget, although we would, that justice and judg- 
ment are the habitation of His throne ; and that His dwel- 
ling-place is not a mere blissful elysium or paradise of sweets, 
but an august and inviolable sanctuary. It is an elysium, 
but only to the spirits of the holy ; and this sacredness, we 
repeat, is immediately forced upon the consciousness of every 
bosom, by the moral sense which is within it — however fear- 
ful a topic it may be of recoil to the sinner, and of reticence 
in the demonstrations of philosophy. The sense of Heaven's 
sacredness is not a superstitious fear. It is the instant sug- 
gestion of our moral nature. "What conscience apprehends 
virtue to be in itself, that also it will apprehend virtue to be 
in the Author of conscience ; and if truth and justice be 
constituent elements in the one, these it will regard as con- 
stituent elements in the other also. It is by learning direct 
of God from the phenomena of human conscience ; or taking 



MAKING A YIETTJOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 



287 



what it tells us to be virtues in themselves, for the very- 
virtues of the Godhead, realised in actual and living exem- 
plification upon His character — it is thus that we escape 
from the illusion of poetical religionists, who, in the incense 
which they offer to the benign virtues of the Parent, are so 
apt to overlook the virtues of the Lawgiver and Judge. 

3. When we take this fuller view of God's moral nature 
— when we make account of the righteousness as well as the 
benevolence — when we yield to the suggestion of our own 
hearts, that to Him belongs the sovereign state, and, if need- 
ful, the severity of the lawgiver, as well as the fond affection 
of the parent — when we assign to Him the character, which, 
instead of but one virtue, is comprehensive of them all — we 
are then on firmer vantage-ground for the establishment of a 
Natural Theology, in harmony, both with the lessons of 
conscience, and with the phenomena of the external world. 
Many of our academic theists have greatly crippled their ar- 
gument, by confining themselves to but one feature in the 
character of the Divinity — as if his only wish in reference to 
the creatures that He had made, was a wish for their happi- 
ness ; or as if, instead of the subjects of a righteous and 
moral government, they were but the nurslings of His ten- 
derness. They have exiled and put forth every thing like 
jurisprudence from the relation in which God stands to man ; 
and by giving the foremost place in their demonstrations to 
the mere beneficence of the Deity, they have made the diffi- 
culties of the subject far more perplexing and unresolvable 
than they needed to have been. For with benevolence alone 
we cannot even extenuate and much less extricate ourselves, 
from the puzzling difficulty of those physical sufferings to 
which the sentient creation, as far as our acquaintance 
extends with it, is universally liable. It is only by admit- 
ting the sanctities along with what may be termed the 



288 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD EOIt 



humanities of the Divine character, that this enigma can 
be at all alleviated. "Whereas, if apart from the equities 
of a moral government, we look to God in no other light 
than mere tasteful and sentimental religionists do, or as but 
a benign and indulgent Pather whose sole delight is the hap- 
piness of his family — there are certain stubborn anomalies 
which stand in the way of this frail imagination, and would 
render the whole subject a hopeless and utterly intractable 
mystery. 

4. A specimen of the weakness which attaches to the sys- 
tem of Natural Theology, when the infinite benevolence of 
the Deity is the only element which it will admit into its 
explanations and its reasonings, is the manner in which its 
advocates labour to dispose of the numerous ills wherewith 
the world is infested. They have recourse to arithmetic — 
balancing the phenomena on each side of the question, as 
they would the columns of a ledger. They institute respec- 
tive summations of the good and the evil ; and by the pre- 
ponderance of the former over the latter, hold the difficulty 
to be resolved. The computation is neither a sure nor an 
easy one ; but even under the admission of its justness, it re- 
mains an impracticable puzzle, why, under a Being of infinite 
power and infinite benevolence, there should be suffering at 
all. This is an enigma which the single attribute of benevo- 
lence cannot unriddle, or rather the very enigma which it 
has created— nor shall we even approximate to the solution 
of it,, without the aid of other attributes to help the ex- 
planation. 

5. It is under the pressure of these difficulties that refuge 
is taken in the imagination of a future state — where it is as- 
sumed that all the disorders of the present scene are to be 
repaired, and full compensation made for the sufferings of 
our earthly existence. It is affirmed, that, although the 



MAKING A YIETUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 289 

body dies, the soul is imperishable ; and, after it hath burst 
its unfettered way from the prison-house of its earthly 
tabernacle, that it will expatiate for ever in the full buoyancy 
and delight of its then emancipated energies— that, even as 
from the lacerated shell of the inert chrysalis the winged 
insect rises in all the pride of its now expanded beauty 
among the fields of light and ether which are above it, so the 
human spirit finds its way through the opening made by 
death upon its corporeal framework among the glories of the 
upper Elysium. It is this immortality which is supposed to 
unriddle all the difficulties that attach to our present condi- 
tion ; which converts the evil that is in the world, into the 
instrument of a greatly overpassing good ; and affords a scene 
for the imagination to rest upon, where all the anomalies 
which now exercise us shall be rectified, and where, from the 
larger prospects we shall then have of the whole march and 
destiny of man, the ways of God to his creatures shall appear 
in all the lustre of their full and noble vindication. 

6. But as the superiority of the happiness over the misery 
of the world, affords insufficient premises on which to con- 
clude the benevolence of God, so long as God is conceived of 
under the partial view of possessing hut this as his alone moral 
attribute — when that benevolence is employed as the argu- 
ment for some ulterior doctrine in Natural Theology, it 
must impart to this latter the same inconclusiveness by 
which itself is characterised. The proof and the thing 
proved must be alike strong or alike weak. If the excess of 
enjoyment over suffering in the life that now is, be a matter 
of far too doubtful calculation, on which to rest a confident 
inference in favour of the Divine benevolence, then, let this 
benevolence have no other prop to lean upon, and, in its 
turn, it is far too doubtful a premise on which to infer a 
coming immortality. Accordingly, to help out the argument, 

TJ 



290 



THE CAPACITIES OE THE WORLD EOR 



many of our slender and sentimental theists, who will admit 
of no other moral attribute for the Divinity than the pater- 
nal attribute of kind affection for the creatures who have 
sprung from Him, do, in fact, assume the thing to be proved, 
and reason in a circle. The mere balance of the pleasures 
and pains of the present life, is greatly too uncertain, for 
what may be called an initial footing to this argument. But 
let a future life be assumed, in which all the defects and dis- 
orders of the present are to be repaired : and this may re- 
concile the doctrine of the benevolence of God, with the 
otherwise stumbling fact of the great actual wretchedness 
that is now in the world. Out of the observed phenomena 
of life and an assumed immortality together, a tolerable ar- 
gument may be raised for this most pleasing and amiable of 
all the moral characteristics ; but it is obvious that the doc- 
trine of immortality enters into the premises of this first 
argument. But how is the immortality itself proved ? not 
by the phenomena of life alone, but by these phenomena 
taken in conjunction with the Divine benevolence — which 
benevolence, therefore, enters into the premise of the second 
argument. In the one argument, the doctrine of immor- 
tality is required to prove the benevolence of God. In the 
other, this benevolence is required to prove the immortality. 
Each is used as an assumption for the establishment of the 
other ; and this nullifies the reasoning for both. Either of 
thes3 terms— that is, the Divine benevolence, or a future 
state of compensation for the evils and inequalities of the 
present one — either of them, if admitted, may be held a very 
sufficient, or at least, likely consideration on which to rest 
the other. But it makes very bad reasoning to vibrate be- 
tween both— first to go forth with the assumption that God 
is benevolent, and therefore it is impossible that a scene so 
dark and disordered as that immediately before us can offer 



MAKING A YIETTJOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 



291 



to our contemplation the full and final development of all 
his designs for the human family ; and then, feeling that this 
scene does afford a sufficient basis on which to rest the de- 
monstration of this attribute, to strengthen the basis and 
make it broader by the assertion, that it is not from a part 
of His ways, but from their complete and comprehensive 
whole, as made up both of time and eternity, that we draw 
the inference of a benevolent Deity. There is no march of 
argument. We swing as it were between two assumptions. 
It is like one of those cases in geometry, which remains in- 
determinate for the want of data. And the only effectual 
method of being extricated from such an ambiguity, would 
be the satisfactory assurance either of a benevolence in- 
dependent of all considerations of immortality, or of an 
immortality independent of all considerations of the be- 
nevolence. 

7. But then it should be recollected that it is the partiality 
of our contemplation, and it alone, which incapacitates this 
whole argument. There is a sickly religion of taste which 
clings exclusively to the parental benevolence of God ; and 
will not, cannot, brave the contemplation of His righteous- 
ness. It is this which makes the reasoning as feeble as the 
sentiment is flimsy. It, in fact, leaves the system of natural 
theology without a groundwork — first to argue for immor- 
tality on the doubtful assumption of a supreme benevolence, 
and then to argue this immortality in proof of the benevolence. 
The whole fabric, bereft of argument and strength, is ready to 
sink under the weight of unresolved difficulties. The mere 
benevolence of the Deity is not so obviously or decisively 
the lesson of surrounding phenomena, as, of itself, to be the 
foundation of a solid inference regarding either the character 
of God or the prospects of man. If we would receive the 
full lesson -if we would learn all which these phenomena, 



292 



THE CAPACITIES OP THE WORLD TOR 



when rightly and attentively regarded, are capable of teaching 
— if, along with the present indications of a benevolence, we 
take the present indications of a righteousness in God — out 
of these blended characteristics, we should have materials for 
an argument of firmer texture. It is to the leaving out of 
certain data, even though placed within the reach of obser- 
vation, that the infirmity of the argument is owing —whereas, 
did we employ aright all the data in our possession, we 
might incorporate them together into the solid groundwork 
of a solid reasoning. It is by our sensitive avoidance of cer- 
tain parts in this contemplation, that we enfeeble the cause. 
"We should find a stable basis in existing appearances, did 
we give them a fair and full interpretation — as indicating 
not only the benevolence of God, bat, both by the course of 
nature and the laws of man's moral economy, indicating His 
love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity. It might not 
resolve, but it would alleviate the mystery of things, could 
we, within the sphere of actual observation, collect notices, 
not merely of a God who rejoiced in the physical happiness 
of His creatures, but of a God who had respect unto their 
virtue. 'Now the great evidence for this latter characteristic 
of the Divinity, lies near at hand— even among the intima- 
cies of our own felt and familiar nature. It is not fetched 
by imagination from a distance, for every man has it within 
himself. The supremacy of conscience is a fact or pheno- 
menon of man's moral constitution ; and from this law of 
the heart, we pass, by direct and legitimate inference, to the 
character of Him who established it there. In a law, we 
read the character of the lawgiver ; and this, whether it be 
a felt or a written law. We learn from the phenomena of 
conscience, that, however God may will the happiness of his 
creatures, His paramount and peremptory demand is for their 
virtue. He is the moral governor of a kingdom, as well as 



MAKING A YIBTTTOTJS SPECIES HAPPY. 29 3 



the father of a family ; and it is a partial view that we take 
of Him, unless, along with the kindness which belongs to 
him as a parent, we have respect unto that authority which 
belongs to Him as a sovereign and a judge. We have direct 
intimation of this in our own bosoms, in the constant assertion, 
which is made there on the side of virtue, in the discomfort 
and remorse which attend its violation. 

8. But though conscience be our original and chief in- 
structor in the righteousness of God, the same lesson may 
be learned in another way. It may be gathered from the 
phenomena of human life — even those very phenomena, 
which so perplex the mind, so long as in quest of but one 
attribute, and refusing to admit the evidence or even enter- 
tain the notion of any other, — it cherishes a partial and 
prejudiced view of the Deity. Those theists, who, in this 
spirit, have attempted to strike a balance between the 
pleasures and the pains of sentient nature, and to ground 
thereupon the very doubtful inference of the Divine bene- 
volence — seldom or never think of connecting these pleasures 
and pains with the moral causes, which, whether proximately 
or remotely, go before them. "Without adverting to these, 
they rest their conclusion on the affirmed superiority, how- 
ever ill or uncertainly made out, of the physical enjoyments 
over the physical sufferings of life. Now we hold it of 
capital importance in this argument, that, in our own species 
at least, both these enjoyments and these sufferings are 
mainly resolvable into moral causes— insomuch that, in the 
vast majority of cases, the deviation from happiness can be 
traced to an anterior deviation from virtue ; and that, apart 
from death and accident and unavoidable disease, the wretch- 
edness of humanity is due to a vicious and ill-regulated 
morale. When we thus look to the ills of life in their 
immediate origin, though it may not altogether dissipate, it 



294 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE WO ELD EOR 



goes far to reduce, and even to explain the mystery of their 
existence. Those evils which vex and agitate man, emanate, 
in the great amount of them, from the fountain of his own 
heart ; and come forth, not of a distempered material, but of 
a distempered moral economy. "Were each separate infelicity 
referred to its distinct source, we should, generally speaking, 
arrive at some moral perversity, whether of the affections or 
of the temper — so that but for the one, the other would not 
have been realized. It is true, that, perhaps in every 
instance, some external cause may be assigned, for any felt 
annoyance to which our nature is liable ; but then, it is a 
cause without, operating on a sensibility within. So that in 
all computations, whether of suffering or of enjoyment, the 
state of the subjective or recipient mind must be taken into 
account, as well as the influences which play upon it from 
the surrounding world ; and what we affirm is, that, to a 
rightly conditioned mind, the misery would be reduced and 
the happiness augmented ten- fold. "When disappointment 
agonizes the heart ; or a very slight, perhaps unintentional 
neglect, lights up in many a soul the fierceness of resent- 
ment ; or coldness and disdain, and the mutual glances of 
. contempt and hatred, circulate a prodigious mass of infelicity 
through the world — these are to be ascribed, not to the 
untowardness of outward circumstances, but to the unto- 
wardness of man's own constitution, and are the fruits of a 
disordered spiritual system. And the same may be said of the 
poverty which springs from indolence or dissipation ; of the 
disgrace which comes on the back of misconduct ; of the 
pain or uneasiness which festers in every heart that is the 
prey, whether of licentious or malignant passions : in short, 
of the general restlessness and unhingement of every spirit, 
which, thrown adrift from the restraints of principle, has no 
well-spring of satisfaction in itself, but precariously vacillates, 



UA£B$r& A TIETUOUS SPECIES HXPPY. 



295 



in regard to happiness, with the hazard and the casual 
fluctuation of outward things. There are, it is true, suffer- 
ings purely physical, which belong to the sentient and not 
to the moral nature — as the maladies of infant disease, and 
the accidental inflictions wherewith the material frame is 
sometimes agonised. Still It will be found, that the vast 
amount of human wretchedness can be directly referred to the 
waywardness and morbid state of the human will — to the 
character of man, and not to the condition which he occupies. 

9. Xow what is the legitimate argument for the character 
of God, not from the mere existence of misery, but from the 
existence of misery thus originated ? "Wretchedness, of 
itself, were fitted to cast an uncertainty, eyen a suspicion, 
on the benevolence of God. But wretchedness as the result 
of wickedness, may not indicate the negation of this one 
attribute. It may only indicate the reality or the presence 
of another. Suffering without a cause and without an 
object, may be the infliction of a malignant being. But 
suffering in alliance with sin, should lead to a very different 
conclusion. When thus related it may cast no impeachment 
on the benevolence, and only bespeak the righteousness of 
God. It tells us that however much He may love the 
happiness of His creatures, He loves their virtue more. So 
that, instead of extinguishing the evidence of one perfection, 
it may leave this evidence entire, and bring out into open 
manifestation another perfection of the Godhead. 

10. In attempting to form our estimate of the Divine 
character from the existing phenomena, the fair proceeding 
would be, not to found it on the actual miseries which 
abound in the world, peopled with a depraved species — but 
on the fitnesses which abound in the world, to make a 
virtuous species happy. We should try to figure its result 
on human life, were perfect virtue to revisit earth, and take 



296 THE CAPACITIES OP THE WOULD FOR 



up its abode in every family. The question is, Are we so 
constructed and so accommodated, that, in the vast majority 
of cases we, if morally right, should be physically happy. 
"What, we should ask, is the real tendency of nature's laws 
—whether to minister enjoyment to the good or the evil ? 
It were a very strong, almost an unequivocal testimony to 
the righteousness of Him who framed the system of things 
and all its adaptations — if, while it secured a general 
harmony between the virtue of mankind and their happiness 
or peace, it as constantly impeded either the prosperity or 
the heart's ease of the profligate and the lawless. Now of 
this we might be informed by an actual survey of human 
life. We can justly imagine the consequences upon human 
society — were perfect uprightness and sympathy and good- 
will to obtain universally ; were every man to look to his 
fellow with a brother's eye ; were a universal courteousness 
to reign in our streets and our houses and our market-places, 
and this to be the spontaneous emanation of a universal 
cordiality ; were each man's interest and reputation as safe 
in the custody of another, as he now strives to make them 
by a jealous guardianship of his own ; were, on the one 
hand, a prompt and eager benevolence on the part of the 
rich, ever on the watch to meet, nay, to overpass, all the 
wants of humanity, and, on the other hand, an honest mode- 
ration and independence on the part of the poor, to be a full 
defence for their superiors against the encroachments of 
deceit and rapacity; were liberality to walk diffusively 
abroad among men, and love to settle, pure and unruffled, in 
the bosom of families ; were that moral sunshine to arise in 
every heart, which purity and innocence and kind affection 
are ever sure to kindle there ; and, even when some visita- 
tion from without was in painful dissonance with the har- 
mony within, were a thousand sweets ready to be poured 



MAKING A YIBTTTOTJS SPECIES HAPPY. 297 



into the cup of tribulation from the feeling and the friend- 
ship of all the good who were around us. On this single 
transition from vice to virtue among men, does there not 
hinge the alternative between a pandemonium and a paradise ? 
If the moral elements were in full play and operation amongst 
us, should we still continue to fester and be unhappy from 
the want of the physical ? Or, is it not rather true, that 
all nature smiles in beauty, or wantpns in bounteousness for 
our enjoyment — were but the disease of our spirits medi- 
cated, were there but moral soundness in the heart of man ? 

11. And what must be the character of the Being who 
formed such a world, where the moral and the physical 
economies are so adjusted to each other, that virtue, if 
universal, would bring ten thousand blessings and beatitudes 
in its train, and turn our earth into an elysium — whereas 
nothing so distempers the human spirit, and so multiplies 
distress in society, as the vice and the violence and the- 
varieties of moral turpitude wherewith it is infested. Would 
a God who loved iniquity and who hated righteousness have 
created such a world? "Would He have so attuned the 
organism of the human spirit, that the consciousness of 
worth should be felt through all its recesses, like the oil of 
gladness ? Or would he Lave so constructed the mechanism 
of human society, that it should never work prosperously 
for the general good of the species, but by means of truth 
and philanthropy and uprightness ? Would the friend and 
patron of falsehood have let such a world out of his hands ? 
Or would an unholy being have so fashioned the heart of 
man — that, wayward and irresolute as he is, he never feels 
so ennobled, as by the high resolve that would spurn every 
base allurement of sensuality away from him ; and never 
breathes so ethereally, as when he maintains that chastity 
of spirit which would recoil even from one unhallowed ima- 



298 THE CAPACITIES OE THE WORLD EOR 



gination ; and never rises to such a sense of grandeur and 
godlike elevation, as when principle hath taken the direction, 
and is vested with full ascendancy over the restrained and 
regulated passions ? What other inference can be drawn 
from such sequences as these, but that our moral Architect 
loves the virtue He thus follows up with the delights of a 
high and generous complacency ; and execrates the vice He 
thus follows up with disgust and degradation ? If we look 
but to misery unconnected and alone, we may well doubt the 
benevolence of the Deity. But should it not modify the 
conclusion to have ascertained — that, in proportion as. virtue 
made entrance upon the world, misery would retire from it ? 
There is nothing to spoil Him of this perfection in a misery 
so originated ; but, leaving this perfection untouched, it 
attaches to him another, and we infer, that He is not merely 
benevolent, but benevolent and holy. After that the moral 
cause has been discovered for the unhappiness of man, we 
feel Him to be a God of benevolence still ; that He wills the 
happiness of His creatures, but with this reservation, that 
the only sound and sincere happiness He awards to them, 
is happiness through the medium of virtue ; that still He is 
willing to be the dispenser of joy substantial and unfading, 
but of no such joy apart from moral excellence ; that He 
loves the gratification of His children, but He loves their 
righteousness more ; that dear to Him is the happiness of all 
His offspring, but dearer still their worth ; and that there- 
fore He, the moral governor, will so conduct the affairs of 
His empire, as that virtue and happiness, or that vice and 
misery shall be associated. 

12. "We have already said, that, by inspecting a mechanism, 
we can infer both the original design of him who framed it, 
and the derangement it has subsequently undergone — even 
as by the inspection of a watch, we can infer, from the place 



MAKING A YIETUOTJS SPECIES HAPPY. 299 

of command which its regulator occupies, that it was made 
for the purpose of moving regularly ; and that, notwith- 
standing the state of disrepair and aberration into which it 
may have fallen. And so, from the obvious place of rightful 
supremacy which is occupied by the conscience of man in his 
moral system, we can infer that virtue was the proper and 
primary design of his creation ; and that notwithstanding 
the actual prevalence of obviously inferior principles over the 
habits and history of his life. Connect this with the grand 
and general adaptation of External Nature for which we have 
now been contending — even the capacity of that world in 
which we are placed for making a virtuous species happy ; 
and it were surely far juster, in arguing for the Divine cha- 
racter, that we founded our interpretation on the happiness 
which man's original constitution is fitted to secure for him, 
than on the misery which he suffers by that constitution 
having been in some way perverted. It is from the native 
and proper tendency of aught which is made, that we conclude 
as to the mind and disposition of the maker ; and not from 
the actual effect, when that tendency has been rendered 
abortive, by the extrinsic operation of some disturbing force 
on an else goodly and well- going mechanism. The original 
design of the Creator may be read in the natural, the uni- 
versal tendency of things ; and surely it speaks strongly both 
for His benevolence and His righteousness, that nothing is 
so fitted to ensure the general happiness of society as the 
general virtue of them who compose it. And if, instead of 
this we behold a world ill at ease with its many heartburnings 
and many disquietudes — the fair conclusion is, that the bene- 
ficial tendencies which have been established therein, and 
which are therefore due to the benevolence of God, have all 
been thwarted by the moral perversity of man. The com- 
pound lesson to be gathered from such a contemplation is, 



300 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WOULD FOE 

that God is the friend of human happiness, but the enemy 
of human vice— seeing, He hath set up an economy in which 
the former would have grown up and prospered universally, 
had not the latter stepped in and overborne it. 

13, "We are now on a groundwork of more firm texture for 
an argument in behalf of man's immortality. But it is only 
by a more comprehensive view both of the character of God 
and the actual state of the world, that we obtain as much 
evidence both for His benevolence and His righteousness, as 
might furnish logical premises for the logical inference of a 
future state. 

14. "We have already stated that the miseries of life, in 
their great and general amount, are resolvable into moral 
causes ; and did each man suffer here, accurately in propor- 
tion to his own sins, there might be less reason for the anti- 
cipation of another state hereafter. But this proportion is,, 
in no individual instance perhaps, ever realized on this side 
of death. The miseries of the good are still due to a moral 
perversity — though but to the moral perversity of others,, 
not of his own. He suffers from the injustice and calumny t 
and violence and evil tempers, of those who are around him. 
On the large and open theatre of the world, the cause of 
oppression is often the triumphant one ; and, in the bosom 
of families, the most meek and innocent of the household are 
frequently the victims for life of a harsh and injurious though 
unseen tyranny. It is this inequality of fortune, or rather 
of enjoyment, between the good and the evil, which forms 
the most popular, and enters as a constituent part at least, 
into the most powerful argument, which nature furnishes for 
the immortality of the soul. "We cannot imagine of a God 
of righteousness, that He will leave any question of justice 
unsettled; and there is nothing which more powerfully 
suggests to the human conscience the apprehension of a life 



MAKIKG A YIETTJOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 301 



to come, than that in this life there should be so many 
unsettled questions of justice — first between man and man, 
secondly between man and his Maker. 

15. The strength of the former consideration lies in the 
multiplicity, and often the fearful aggravation, of the unre- 
dressed wrongs inflicted every day by man upon his fellows. 
The history of human society teems with these ; and the 
unappeased cry, whether for vengeance or reparation, rises 
to heaven because of them. "We might here expatiate on the 
monstrous, the wholesale atrocities, perpetrated on the 
defenceless by the strong ; and which custom has almost 
legalized — having stood their ground against the indignation 
of the upright and the good for many ages. Perhaps for the 
most gigantic example of this, in the dark annals of our guilty 
world, we should turn our eyes upon injured Africa — that de- 
voted region, where the lust of gain has made the fiercest and 
fellest exhibition of its hardihood ; and whose weeping fami- 
lies are broken up in thousands every year, that the families 
of Europe might the more delicately and luxuriously regale 
themselves. It is a picturesque, and seems a powerful argu- 
ment for some future day of retribution, when we look, on 
the one hand, to the prosperity of the lordly oppressor, 
wrung from the sufferings of a captive and subjugated peo- 
ple ; and look, on the other, to the tears and the untold agony 
of the hundreds beneath him, whose lives of dreariness and 
hard labour are tenfold embittered, by the imagery of that 
dear and distant land, from which they have been irrecover- 
ably torn. But, even within the confines of civilized society, 
there do exist materials for our argument. There are 
cruelties and wrongs innumerable in the conduct of business ; 
there are even cruelties and wrongs in the bosom of families. 
There are the triumphs of injustice ; the success of deep-laid 
and malignant policy on the one side, on the other the 



302 



THE CAPACITIES OE THE WORLD EOR 



ruin and the overthrow of unprotected weakness. Apart 
from the violence of the midnight assault, or the violence of 
the highway — there is, even under the forms of law, and 
amid the blandness of social courtesies, a moral violence 
that carries as grievous and substantial iniquity in its train ; 
by which friendless and confiding simplicity may at once be 
bereft of its rights, and the artful oppressor be enriched by 
the spoliation. Have we never seen the bankrupt rise again 
with undiminished splendour, from amid the desolation and 
despair of the families that have been ruined by him ? Or, 
more secret though not less severe have we not seen the in- 
mates of a wretched home doomed to a hopeless and unhappy 
existence, under the sullen brow of the tyrant who lorded 
over them ? There are sufferings from which there is no 
redress or rectification upon earth; inequalities between 
man and man, of which there is no adjustment here —but 
because of that very reason, there is the utmost desire, and 
we might add expectancy of our nature, that there shall be 
an adjustment hereafter. In the unsated appetency of our 
hearts for justice, there is all the force of an appeal to the 
Being who planted the appetite within us ; and we feel that 
if Death is to make sudden disruption, in the midst of all 
these unfinished questions, and so to leave them eternally — 
we feel a violence done both to our own moral constitution, 
and to the high jurisprudence of Him who framed us. 

16. But there are furthermore, in this life, unfinished 
questions between man and his Maker. The same con- 
science which asserts its own supremacy within the breast, 
suggests the God and the Moral Governor who placed it 
there. It is thus that man not only takes cognizance of his 
own delinquencies; but he connects them with the thought 
of a lawgiver to whom he is accountable. He passes, by one 
step, and with rapid inference, from the feeling of a judge 



MAKING A YIETTJOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 



303 



who is within, to the fear of a Judge who sits in high au- 
thority over him. With the sense of a reigning principle in 
his own constitution, there stands associated the sense of a 
reigning power in the universe — the one challenging the 
prerogatives of a moral law, the other avenging the violation 
of them. Even the hardiest in guilt are not insensible to 
the force of this sentiment. They feel it, as did Catiline 
and the worst of Eoman emperors, in the horrors of remorse. 
There is, in spite of themselves, the impression of an aveug- 
ing God— not the less founded upon reasoning, that it is 
the reason of but one truth, or rather of but one transition, 
from a thing intimately known to a thing immediately con- 
cluded, from the reckoning of a felt and a present conscience 
within, to the more awful reckoning of a God who is the 
author of conscience and who knoweth all things. Now, it 
is thus that men are led irresistibly to the anticipation of a 
future state — not by their hopes, we think, but by their 
fears ; not by a sense of unfulfilled promises, but by the sense 
and the terror of unfulfilled penalties ; by their sense of a 
judgment not yet executed, of a wrath not yet discharged 
upon them. Hence the impression of a futurity upon all 
spirits, whither are carried forward the issues of a jurispru- 
dence, which bears no marks, but the contrary, of a full and 
final consummation on this side of death. The prosperity of 
many wicked who spend their days in dissolute and contemp- 
tuous irreligion ; and practical defiance of their lives to the 
bidding of conscience, and yet a voice of remonstrance and 
of warning from this said conscience which they are unable 
wholly to quell ; the many emphatic denunciations, not uttered 
in audible thunder from above, but uttered in secret and 
impressive whispers from within — these all point to accounts 
between God and His creatures that are yet unfinished. 
If there be no future state, the great moral question between 



304 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 



heaven and earth, broken off in the middle, is frittered into 
a degrading mockery. There is violence done to the conti- 
nuity of things. The moral constitution of man is stript of 
its significancy and the Author of that constitution is stript 
of His wisdom and authority and honour. That consistent 
march which we behold in all the cycles, and progressive 
movements of natural economy, is, in the moral economy, 
brought to sudden arrest and disruption — if death annihilate 
the man, instead of only transforming him. And it is only 
the doctrine of his immortality by which all can be adjusted 
and harmonized.* 

17. And there is one especial proof for the immortality 
of the soul, distinct from the one that we have now set forth 
— yet founded on adaptation ; and therefore so identical 
in principle with the subject and main argument of our essay 
— that we feel its statement to be our best and most appro- 
priate termination of this especial inquiry. The argument 
is this : Por every desire or every faculty, whether in man 
or in the inferior animals, there seems a counterpart object 
in external nature. Let it be either an appetite or a power ; 
and let it reside either in the sentient or in the intellectual 
or in the moral economy — still there exists a something 
without that is altogether suited to it, and which seems to 
be expressly provided for its gratification. There is light 
for the eye ; there is air for the lungs ; there is food for the 
ever-recurring appetite of hunger ; there is water for the 
appetite of thirst ; there is society for the love, whether of 
fame or of fellowship ; there is a boundless field in all the 
objects of all the sciences for the exercise of curiosity — in a 

* It is well said by Mr. Davidson, in his profound and original work 
on Prophecy — that " Conscience and the present constitution of thing's are 
not corresponding 1 terms. The one is not the object of perception to the 
other. It is conscience and the issue of thing's which g*o together." 



•M-ATmsG- A YIKTT70T7S SPECIES HAPPY. 305 

word, there seems not one affection in the living creature, 
■which is not met by a counterpart and a congenial object 
in the surrounding creation. It is this, in fact, which forms 
an important class of those adaptations on which the argu- 
ment for a Deity is founded. The adaptation of the parts 
to each other within the organic structure, is distinct from 
the adaptation of the whole to the things of circumambient 
nature ; and is well unfolded in a separate chapter by Paley, 
on the relation of inanimate bodies to animated nature. 
But there is another chapter on prospective contrivances, 
in which he unfolds to us other adaptations, that approxi- 
mate still more nearly to our argument. They consist of 
embryo arrangements or parts, not of immediate use, but to 
be of use eventually — preparations going on in the animal 
economy, whereof the full benefit is not to be realized till 
some future, and often considerably distant development 
shall have taken place ; such as the teeth buried in their 
sockets, that would be inconvenient during the first months 
of infancy, but come forth when it is sufficiently advanced 
for another and a new sort of nourishment ; such as the 
manifold preparations, anterior to the birth, that are of no 
use to the foetus, but are afterwards to be of indispensable 
use in a larger and freer state of existence ; such as the 
instinctive tendencies to action that appear before even the 
instruments of action are provided, as in the calf of a day 
old to butt with its head before it has been furnished with 
horns. Nature abounds, not merely in present expedients 
for an immediate use, but in providential expedients for a 
future one ; and, as far as we can observe, we have no reason 
to believe, that, either in the first or second sort of expe- 
dients, there has ever aught been noticed, which either bears 
on no object now, or lands in no result afterwards. We 
may perceive in this the glimpse of an argument for the 

x 



306 



THE CAPACITIES OF THE WO ELD FOR 



soul's immortality. We may enter into the analogy, as 
stated by Dr. Ferguson, when he says — " Whosoever con- 
siders the anatomy of the foetus, will find, in the strength 
of bones and muscles, in the organs of respiration and 
digestion, sufficient indications of a design to remove his 
being into a different state. The observant and the intel- 
ligent may perhaps find in the mind of man parallel signs of 
his future destination."* 

* Dr. Ferguson's reasoning' upon this subject is worthy of being- ex- 
tracted more largely than we have room for in the text, — " If the human 
foetus," he observes, " were qualified to reason of his prospects in the 
womb of his parent, as he may afterwards do in his range on this terres- 
trial globe, he might no doubt apprehend in the breach of his umbilical 
chord, and in his separation from the womb, a total extinction of life ; for 
how could he conceive it to continue after his only supply of nourishment 
from the vital stock of his parent had ceased ? He might indeed observe 
many parts of his organization and frame which should seem to have no 
relation to his state in the womb. For what purpose, he might say, this 
duct which leads from the mouth to the intestines? Why these bones 
that each apart become hard and stiff, while they are separated from one 
another by so many flexures or joints ? Why these joints in particular 
made to move upon hinges, and these germs of teeth, which are pushing 
to be felt above the surface of the gums ? Why the stomach through 
which nothing is made to pass ? And these spongy lungs, so well fitted 
to drink up the fluids, but into which the blood that passes every where 
else is scarcely permitted to enter ? 

" To these queries, which the foetus was neither qualified to make nor 
to answer, we are now well apprised the proper answer would be — The 
life which you now enjoy is but temporary ; and those particulars which 
now seem to you so preposterous, are a provision which nature has made 
for a future course of life which you have to run, and in which their use 
and propriety will appear sufficiently evident. 

" Such are the prognostics of a future destination that might be col- 
lected from the state of the foetus ; and similar prognostics of a destination 
still future might be collected from present appearances in the life and 
condition of mau" 



MAKING A YIETTJOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 307 



18. Now what inference shall we draw from this remark- 
able law in nature, that there is nothing waste and nothing 
meaningless in the feelings and faculties wherewith living 
creatures are endowed ? For each desire there is a coun- 
terpart object, for each faculty there is room and oppor- 
tunity of exercise — either in the present, or in the coming 
futurity. JSow, but for the doctrine of immortality, man 
would be an exception to this law. He would stand forth 
as an anomaly in nature— with aspirations in his heart for 
which the universe had no antitype to offer, with capacities 
of understanding and thought, that never were to be fol- 
lowed by objects of corresponding greatness, through the 
whole history of his being. It were a violence to the har- 
mony of things, whereof no other example can be given ; 
and, in as far as an argument can be founded on this har- 
mony for the wisdom of Him who made all things — it were 
a reflection on one of the conceived, if not one of the ascer- 
tained attributes of the Godhead. To feel the force of this 
argument, we have only to look to the obvious adaptation 
of his powers to a larger and more enduring theatre— to the 
dormant faculties which are in him for th*e mastery and 
acquisition of all the sciences, and yet the partial ignorance 
of all, and the profound or total ignorance of many, in which 
he spends the short-lived years of his present existence — 
to the boundless, but here, the unopened capabilities which 
lie up in him, for the comprehension of truths that never 
once draw his attention on this side of death, for the con- 
templative enjoyment both of moral and intellectual beauties 
which have never here revealed themselves to his gaze. 
The whole labour of this mortal life would not suffice for 
traversing in full extent any one of the sciences ; and yet, 
there may lie undeveloped in his bosom a taste and talent 
for them all — none of which he can even singly overtake ; 



308 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WOULD, ETC. 

for each science, though definite in its commencement, has its 
out-goings in the infinite and the eternal. There is in man, 
a restlessness of ambition ; an interminable longing after 
nobler and higher things, which nought but immortality and 
the greatness of immortality can satiate ; a dissatisfaction 
with the present, which never is appeased by all that the 
world has to offer ; an impatience and distaste with the felt 
littleness of all that he finds, and an unsated appetency for 
something larger and better, which he fancies in the per- 
spective before him — to all which there is nothing like 
among any of the inferior animals, with whom there is a 
certain squareness of adjustment, if we may so terra it, 
between each desire and its correspondent gratification. 
The one is evenly met by the other ; and there is a fulness 
and definiteness of enjoyment, up to the capacity of enjoy- 
ment. Not so with man, who, both from the vastness of 
his propensities and the vastness of his powers, feels himself 
straitened and beset in a field too narrow for him. He 
alone labours under the discomfort of an incongruity between 
his circumstances and his powers ; and, unless there be new 
circumstances * awaiting him in a more advanced state of 
being, he, the noblest of Nature's products here below, 
would turn out to be the greatest of her failures. 



309 



PART II. 

Oft THE ADAPTATION OF EXTEKNAL NATUBE TO THE 
INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 



CHAPTEE I. 
Chief Instances of this Adaptation. 

L (1,) The law of most extensive influence over the 
phenomena and processes of the mind, is the law of associa- 
tion, or, as denominated by Dr. Thomas Brown, the law of 
suggestion. If two objects have been seen in conjunction, 
or in immediate succession, at any one time — then the sight 
or thought of one of them afterwards, is apt to suggest 
the thought of the other also ; and the same is true of the 
objects of all the senses. The same smells or sounds or 
tastes which have occurred formerly, when they occur 
again, will often recal the objects from which they then 
proceeded, the occasions or other objects with which they 
were then associated. When one meets with a fragrance 
of a particular sort, it may often instantly suggest a fragrance 
of the same kind experienced months or years ago ; the rose- 
bush from which it came ; the garden where it grew ; the 
friend with whom we then walked ; his features, his conver- 
sation, his relatives, his history. "When two ideas have been 
once in juxtaposition, they are apt to present themselves in 
juxtaposition over again — an aptitude which ever increases 
the oftener that the conjunction has taken place, till, as if 



310 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



by an invincible necessity, the antecedent thought is sure 
to bring its usual consequent along with it ; and, not only 
single sequences, but lengthened trains or progressions of 
thought may in this manner be explained. 

2. And such are the great speed and facility of these 
successions, that many of the intermediate terms, though all 
of them undoubtedly present to the mind, flit so quickly 
and evanescently, as to pass unnoticed. This will the more 
certainly happen, if the antecedents are of no further use 
than to introduce the consequents ; in which case, the 
consequents remain as the sole objects of attention, and 
the antecedents are forgotten. In the act of reading, the 
ultimate object is to obtain possession of the author's 
sentiments or meaning ; and all memory of the words, still 
more of the component letters, though each of them must 
have been present to the mind, pass irrecoverably away 
from it. In like manner, the anterior steps of many a 
mental process may actually be described, yet without con- 
sciousness — the attention resting, not on the fugitive means, 
but on the important end in which they terminate. It is 
thus that we seem to judge, on the instant, of distances, 
as if under a guidance that was immediate and instinctive, 
and not by the result of a derivative process — because 
insensible to the rapid train of inference which led to it. 
The mind is too much occupied with the information itself, 
for looking back on the light and shadowy footsteps of the 
messenger who brought it, which it would find difficult if 
not impossible to trace — and besides having no practical call 
upon it for making such a retrospect. It is thus that, when 
looking intensely on some beautiful object in Nature, we 
are so much occupied with the resulting enjoyment, as to 
overlook the intermediate train of unbidden associations, 
which connects the sight of that which is before us, with 



co>~$TiTrTio>~ or max. 



311 



the resulting and exquisite pleasure that we feel in the act 
of beholding it. The principle has been much resorted to, 
in expounding that process by which the education of the 
senses is carried forward ; and, more especially, the way in 
which the intimations of sight and touch are made to correct 
and to modify each other. It has also been employed with 
good effect in the attempt to establish a philosophy of taste. 
But these rapid and fugitiye associations, while they form a 
real, form also an unseen process ; and we are not therefore 
to wonder, if, along with many solid explanations, they 
should haye been so applied in the inyestigation of mental 
phenomena, as occasionally to haye giyen rise to subtle and 
fantastic theories. 

3. But our proper business at present is with results, 
rather than with processes ; and instead of entering on the 
more recondite inquiries of the science, howeyer interesting 
and howeyer beautiful or eyen satisfactory the conclusions 
may be to which they lead — it is our task to point out those 
palpable benefits and subserviences of our intellectual 
constitution, which demonstrate, without obscurity, the 
beneyolent designs of Him who framed us. There are some 
of our mental philosophers, indeed, who have theorised and 
simplified beyond the eyidence of those facts which lie before 
us ; and our argument should be kept clear, for in reality it 
does not partake in the uncertainty or error of their specula- 
tions. The law of association, for example, has been of 
late reasoned upon, as if it were the sole parent and 
predecessor of all the mental phenomena. Tet it does not 
fully explain, however largely it may influence, the pheno- 
mena of memory. When by means of one idea, anyhow 
awakened in the mind, the whole of some past transaction 
or scene is brought to recollection, it is association which 
recalls to our thoughts this portion of our former history. 



312 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



But association cannot explain our recognition of its actual 
and historical truth — or what it is, which, beside an act of 
conception, makes it also an act of remembrance. By 
means of this law we may understand how it is, that certain 
ideas, suggested by certain others which came before it, are 
now present to the mind. But superadded to the mere 
presence of these ideas, there is such a perception of the 
reality of their archetypes, as distinguishes a case of remem- 
brance from a case of imagination — insomuch that over and 
above the conception of certain objects, there is also a 
conviction of their substantive being at the time which we 
connect with the thought of them ; and this is what the law 
of association cannot by itself account for. It cannot 
account for our reliance upon memory— not as conjurer of 
visions into the chamber of imagery, but as an informer of 
stable and objective truths which had place and fulfilment in 
the actual world of experience. 

4. And the same is true of our believing anticipations of 
the future which we have now affirmed to be true of our 
believing retrospects of the past. The confidence wherewith 
we count on the same sequences in future, that we have 
observed in the course of our past experience, has been 
resolved by some philosophers, into the principle of associa- 
tion alone. Now when we have seen a certain antecedent 
followed up by a certain consequent, the law of association 
does of itself afford a sufficient reason, why the idea of that 
antecedent should be followed up by the idea of its conse- 
quent ; but it cod tains within it no reason, why, on the 
actual occurrence again of the antecedent we should believe 
that the consequent will occur also. That the thought of the 
antecedent should suggest the thought of the consequent, is 
one mental phenomenon. That the knowledge of the ante- 
cedent having anew taken place, should induce the certainty, 



CONSTITUTION OF ill^. 



313 



that the consequent must have taken place also, is another 
mental phenomenon. "We cannot confound these two, with- 
out being involved in the idealism of Hume or Berkeley. 
Were the mere thought of the consequent all that was to be 
accounted for, we need not go farther than to the law of 
association. But when to the existence of this thought, there 
is superadded a belief in the reality of its archetype, a distinct 
mental phenomenon comes into view, which the law of asso- 
ciation does not explain ; and which for aught that the 
analysts of the mind have yet been able to trace or discover, 
is an ultimate principle of the human understanding. This 
belief, then, is one thing. But ere we can make out an 
adaptation, we must be able to allege at least two things. 
And they are ready to our hands— for, in addition to the 
belief in the subjective mind, there is a correspondent and 
counterpart reality in objective nature. If we have formerly 
observed that a given antecedent is followed by a certain 
consequent, then, not only does the idea of the antecedent 
suggest the idea of the[consequent ; but there is a belief, th 
on the actual occurrence of the same antecedent, the same 
consequent, will follow over again. And the consequent does 
follow ; or, in other words, this our instinctive faith meets with 
its expected fulfilment, in the actual course and constancy of 
nature. The law of association does of itself, and without 
going further, secure this general convenience — that the 
courses of the mind are hereby conformed, or are made to 
quadrate and harmonize with the courses of the outer world. 
It is the best possible construction for the best and most useful 
guidance of the mind, as in the exercise of memory for example, 
that thought should be made to follow thought, according to 
the order in which the events of nature are related to each 
other. But a belief in the certainty and uniformity of this 
order, with the counterpart verification of this belief in the 



314 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



actual history of things, is that which we now are especially 
regarding. It forms our first instance, perhaps the most 
striking and marvellous of all, of the adaptation of external 
nature to the intellectual constitution of man. 

5. This disposition to count on the uniformity of Nature, 
or even to anticipate the same consequents from the same 
antecedents — is not the fruit of experience, but anterior to 
it ; or at least anterior to the very earliest of those of her 
lessons which can be traced backward in the history of an 
infant mind. Indeed it has been well observed by Dr. 
Thomas Brown, that the future constancy of Nature, is a 
lesson, which no observation of its past constancy, or no 
experience could have taught us. Because we have observed 
A a thousand times to be followed in immediate succession 
by B, there is no greater logical connection between this 
proposition and the proposition that A will always be followed 
by B ; than there is between the propositions that we have 
seen A followed once by B, and therefore A will always be 
followed by B. At whatever stage of the experience the 
inference may be made, whether longer or shorter, whether 
offcener or seldomer repeated — the conversion of the past 
into the future seems to require a distinct and independent 
principle of belief ; and it is a principle which, to all appear- 
ance is as vigorous in childhood as in the full maturity of the 
human understanding. The child who strikes the table with 
a spoon for the first time, and is regaled by the noise, will 
strike again, with as confident an expectation of the same 
result, as if the succession had been familiar to it for years. 
There is the expectation before the experience of Nature's 
constancy ; and still the topic of our wonder and gratitude 
is, that this instinctive and universal faith in the heart, should 
be responded to by objective nature, in one wide and uni- 
versal fulfilment. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



315 



6. The proper office of experience, in this matter, is very 
generally misapprehended ; and this has mystified the real 
principle and philosophy of the subject. Her office is not to 
tell, or to reassure us of the constancy of Nature ; but to 
tell what the terms of her unalterable progression actually 
are. The human mind from its first outset, and in virtue of 
a constitutional bias coeval with the earliest dawn of the un- 
derstanding, is prepared, and that before experience has 
begun her lessons, to count on the constancy of Nature's 
sequences. But at that time, it is profoundly ignorant of 
the sequences in themselves. It is the proper business of 
experience to give this information ; but it may require 
many lessons before that her disciples be made to under- 
stand what be the distinct terms even of but one sequence. 
Nature presents us with her phenomena in complex assem- 
blages ; and it is often difficult, in the work of disentangling 
her trains from each other, to single out the proper and 
causal antecedent with its resulting consequent, from among 
the crowd of accessory or accidental circumstances by which 
they are surrounded. There is never any uncertainty, as to 
the invariableness of Nature's successions. The only un- 
certainty is as to the steps of each succession ; and the dis- 
tinct achievement of experience is to ascertain these steps. 
And many mistakes are committed in this course of educa- 
tion, from our disposition to confound the similarities with 
the samenesses of Nature. "We never misgive in our general 
confidence that the same antecedent will be followed by the 
same consequent ; but we often mistake the semblance for 
the reality, and are as often disappointed in the expectations 
that we form. This is the real account of that growing 
confidence, wherewitli we anticipate the same results in the 
same apparent circumstances, the oftener that that result has 
in these circumstances been observed by us — as of a high- 



316 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



water about twice every day, or of a sunrise every morning. 
It is not that we need to be more assured than we are 
already of the constancy of Nature, in the sense that every 
result must always be the sure effect of its strict and causal 
antecedent. But we need to be assured of the real pre- 
sence of this antecedent, in that mass of contemporaneous 
things under which the result has taken place hitherto ; and 
of this we are more and more satisfied with every new 
occurrence of the same event in the same apparent circum- 
stances. This too is our real object in the repetition of 
experiments. Not that we suspect that Nature will ever 
vacillate from her constancy — for if by one decisive experi- 
ment we should fix the real terms of any succession, this 
experiment were to us as good as a thousand. But each 
succession in nature is so liable to be obscured and compli- 
cated by other influences, that we must be quite sure, ere 
we can proclaim our discovery of some new sequence, that 
we have properly disentangled her separate trains from each 
other. 'For this purpose we have often to question Nature 
in many different ways ; we have to combine and apply her 
elements variously ; we have sometimes to detach one in- 
gredient, or to add another, or to alter the proportions of a 
third — and all in order, not to ascertain the invariableness 
of Nature, for of this we have had instinctive certainty from 
the beginning ; but in order to ascertain what the actual 
footsteps of her progressions are, so as to connect each 
effect in the history of Nature's changes with its strict and 
proper cause. Meanwhile, amid all the suspense and the 
frequent disappointments which attend this search into the 
processes of nature, our confidence in the rigid and inviol- 
able uniformity of these processes remains unshaken — a 
confidence not learned from experience, but amply confirmed 
and accorded to by experience. For this instinctive expec- 



CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 



317 



tation is never once refuted, in the whole course of our 
subsequent researches. Nature, though stretched on a rack, 
or put to the torture by the inquisitions of science, never 
falters from her immutability ; but persists, unseduced and 
unwearied, in the same response to the same question ; or 
gives forth, by a spark or an explosion, or an effervescence, 
or some other definite phenomenon, the same result to the 
same circumstances or combination of data. The anticipations 
of infancy meet with their glorious verification in all the 
findings of manhood ; and a truth which would seem to 
require Omniscience for its grasp, as coextensive with all 
Nature and all History, is deposited by the hand of God in 
the little cell of a nursling's cogitations. 

7. Tet the immutability of Nature has ministered to the 
atheism of some spirits, as impressing on the universe a 
character of blind necessity, instead of that spontaneity 
which might mark the intervention of a willing and a living 
God. To refute this notion of an unintelligent fate, as 
being the alone presiding Divinity, the common appeal is to 
the infinity and exquisite skill of Nature's adaptations. But 
to attack this infidelity in its fortress, and dislodge it thence, 
the more appropriate argument would be the very, the indi- 
vidual adaptation on which we have now insisted— the 
immutability of Nature, in conjunction with the universal 
sense and expectation, even from earliest childhood, that all 
men have of it ; being itself one of the most marvellous and 
strikingly beneficial of these adaptations. When viewed 
aright, it leads to a sounder and wiser conclusion than that 
of the fatalists. In the instinctive, the universal faith of 
Nature's constancy, we behold a promise. In the actual 
constancy of Nature, we behold its fulfilment. "When the 
two are viewed in connection, then, to be told that Nature 
never recedes from her constancy, is to be told that the God 



318 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



of Nature never recedes from His faithfulness. If not by a 
whisper from His voice, at least by the impress of His hand, 
He hath deposited a silent expectation in every hand ; and He 
makes all Nature and all History conspire to realize it. He 
hath not only enabled man to retain in his memory a faithful 
transcript of the past ; but, by means of this constitutional 
tendency, this instinct of the understanding, as it has been 
termed, to look with prophetic eye upon the future. It is 
the link by which we connect experience with anticipation 
— a power or exercise of the mind coeval with the first 
dawnings of consciousness or observation, because obvi- 
ously that to which we owe the confidence so early acquired 
and so firmly established, in the information of our senses.* 

* It is from our tactual sensations that we obtain our first original per- 
ceptions of distance and magnitude ; and it is only because of the inva- 
riable connection which subsists between the same tactual and the same 
visual sensations, that by means of the latter we obtain secondary or 
acquired perceptions of distance and magnitude. It is obvious that with- 
out a faith in the uniformity of nature, this rudimental education could 
not have taken effect ; and from the confidence wherewith we proceed in 
very early childhood on the intimations of the eye, we may infer how 
strongly this principle must have been at work throughout the anterior 
stage of our still earlier infancy. The lucid and satisfactory demonstra- 
tion upon this subject in that delightful little work, the Theory of Vision, 
by Bishop Berkeley, has not been superseded, because it has not been im- 
proved upon, by the lucubrations of any subsequent author. The theo- 
logy which he would found on the beautiful process which he has unfolded 
so well, is somewhat tinged with the mysticism of that doctrine which 
represents our seeing all things in God. Certain it is, however, that the 
process could not have been advanced or consummated, without an abori- 
ginal faith on the part of the infant mind in the uniformity of nature's 
sequences, a disposition to expect the same consequents from the same 
antecedents, and hence an inference which, whenever these same antece- 
dents present themselves, is at length made, and that in very early child- 
hood, with such rapidity as well as confidence, that it leads all men to 



CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 



319 



This disposition to presume on the constancy of Nature, 
commences with the faculty of thought, and keeps by it 
through life, and enables the mind to convert its stores of 
memory into the treasures of science and wisdom ; and so 
to elicit from the recollections of the past, both the doc- 
trines of a general philosophy, and the lessons of daily and 
familiar conduct— and that by means of prognostics not one 

confound their acquired with their original perceptions ; and it requires 
a subtle analysis to disentangle the two from each other. Without par- 
taking- in the metaphysics of Berkeley, we fully concur in the strength 
and certainty of those theistical conclusions which are expressed by him 
in the following sentences : " Something there is of divine and admirable 
in this language addressed to our eyes, that may well awaken the mind, 
and deserve its utmost attention ; it is learned with so little pains, it ex- 
presses the difference of things so clearly and aptly, it instructs with such 
facility and despatch, by one glance of the eye conveying a greater variety 
of advices, and a more distinct knowledge of things, than could be got by 
a discourse of several hours ; and, while it informs, it amuses and enter- 
tains the mind with such singular pleasure and delight ; it is of such ex- 
cellent use in giving a stability and permanency to human discourse, in 
recording sounds and bestowing life on dead languages, enabling us to 
converse with men of remote ages and countries ; and it answers so appo- 
site to the uses and necessities of mankind, informing us more distinctly of 
those objects, whose nearness or magnitude qualify them to be of greatest 
detriment or benefit to our bodies, and less exactly in proportion as their 
littleness or distance make them of less concern to us. But these things 
are not strange, they are familiar, and that makes them to be overlooked. 
Things which rarely happen strike ; whereas frequency lessens the admi- 
ration of things, though in themselves ever so admirable. Hence a common 
man who is not used to think and make reflections, would probably be 
more convinced of the being of a God by one single sentence heard once 
in his life from the sky, than by all the experience he has had of this 
visual language, contrived with such exquisite skill, so constantly addressed 
to his eyes, and so plainly declaring the nearness, wisdom, and providence 
of Him with whom we have to do.— Minute Philosopher. Dialogue iv. 
Art. xv. 



320 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



of which can fail, for, in respect of her steadfast uniformity, 
Nature never disappoints, or, which is equivalent to this* 
the Author of Nature never deceives us^ The generality of 
Nature's laws is indispensable, both to the formation of any 
system of truth for the understanding, and to the guidance 
of our actions. But ere we can make such use of it, the 
sense and the confident expectation of this generality must 
be previously in our minds ; and the concurrence, the con- 
tingent harmony of these two elements ; the exquisite adap- 
tation of the objective to the subjective, with the manifest 
utilities to which it is subservient, the palpable and perfect 
meetness which subsists between this intellectual propensity 
in man, and all the processes of the outward universe — 
while they afford incontestable evidence to the existence and 
unity of that design, which must have adjusted the mental 
and the material formations to each other, speak most deci- 
sively in our estimation both for the truth and the wisdom 
of God. 

8. ¥e have long felt this close and unexcepted, while at 
the same time, contingent harmony, between the actual con- 
stancy of Nature and man's faith in that constancy, to be 
an effectual preservative against that scepticism, which would 
represent the whole system of our thoughts and perceptions 
to be founded on an illusion. Certain it is, that beside an 
indefinite number of truths received by the understanding 
as the conclusions of a proof more or less lengthened, there 
are truths recognised without proof by an instant act of 
intuition — not the results of a reasoning process, but them- 
selves the first principles of all reasoning. At every step 
in the train of argumentation, we affirm one thing to bo 
true, because of its logical connection with another thing 
known to be true : but as this process of derivation is not 
eternal, it is obvious, that, at the commencement of at 



CONSTITUTION OP ^TAN. 



321 



least some of these trains, there must be truths, which, in- 
stead of borrowing their evidence from others, announce 
themselves immediately to the mind in an original and in- 
dependent evidence of their own. Now they are these 
primary convictions of the understanding, these cases of a 
belief without reason, which minister to the philosophical 
infidelity of those, who, professing to have no dependence 
on an instinctive faith, do in fact alike discard all truth, 
whether demonstrated or undemonstrated — seeing that un- 
derived or unreasoned truth must necessarily form the basis, 
as well as the continuous cement of all reasoning. They 
challenge us to account for these native and original con- 
victions of the mind ; and affirm that they may be as much 
due to an arbitrary organization of the percipient faculty, 
as to the objective trueness of the things which are per- 
ceived. And we cannot dispute the possibility of this. 
We can neither establish by reasoning those truths, whose 
situation is, not any where in the stream, but at the foun- 
tain of ratiocination ; nor can we deny that beings might 
have been so differently constituted, as that, with reverse 
intuitions to our own, they might have recognised as truths 
what we instantly recoil from as falsehoods, or felt to be 
absurdities our first and foremost principles of truth. And 
when this suspicion is once admitted, so as to shake our 
confidence in the judgments of the intellect, it were but 
consistent that it should be extended to the departments 
both of morality and taste. Our impressions of what is 
virtuous or of what is fair, may be regarded as alike acci- 
dental and arbitrary with our impressions of what is true — 
being referable to the structure of the mind, and not to any 
objective reality in the things which are contemplated. It 
is thus that the absolutely true, or good, or beautiful, may 
be conceived of, as having no stable or substantive being in 

Y 



322 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



nature ; and the mind, adrift from all fixed principle, may 
thus lose itself in universal pyrrhonism. 

9. Nature is fortunately too strong for this speculation ; 
but still there is a comfort in being enabled to vindicate the 
confidence which she has inspired — as in those cases, where 
some original principle of hers admits of being clearly and 
decisively tested. And it is so of our faith in the con- 
stancy of nature, met and responded to, throughout all her 
dominions, by nature's actual constancy — the one being the 
expectation, the other its rigid and invariable fulfilment. 
This perhaps is the most palpable instance which can be 
quoted, of a belief anterior to experience, yet of which ex- 
perience affords a wide and unexcepted verification. It 
proves at least of one of our implanted instincts, that it is 
unerring ; and that, over against a subjective tendency in 
the mind, there is a great objective reality in circumam- 
bient nature to which it corresponds. This may well con- 
vince us, that we live, not in a world of imaginations — but 
in a world of realities. It is a noble example of the har- 
mony which obtains, between the original make and consti- 
tution of the human spirit upon the one hand, and the 
constitution of external things upon the other ; and nobly 
accredits the faithfulness of Him, who, as the Creator of 
both, ordained this happy and wondrous adaptation. The 
monstrous suspicion of the sceptics is, that we are in the 
hands of a God, who, by the insertion of falsities into the 
human system, sports himself with a laborious deception on 
the creatures whom He has made. The invariable order of 
nature, in conjunction with the apprehension of this inva- 
riableness existing in all hearts ; the universal expectation 
with its universal fulfilment, is a triumphant refutation of 
this degrading mockery— evincing, that it is not a phantas- 
magoria in which we dwell, but a world peopled with reali- 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



323 



ties. That we are never misled in our instinctive belief of 
nature's uniformity, demonstrates the perfect safety where- 
with we may commit ourselves to the guidance of our 
original principles, whether intellectual or moral — assured, 
that, instead of occupying a land of shadows, a region of 
universal doubt and derision, they are the stabilities, both 
of an everlasting truth and an everlasting righteousness 
with which we have to do. 

10. This lesson obtains a distinct and additional confirma- 
tion from every particular instance of adaptation, which can 
be found, of external nature, either to the moral or intellec- 
tual constitution of man. 

11. (2.) To understand our second adaptation, we must 
advert to the difference that obtains between those truths 
which are so distinct and independent, that each can only be 
ascertained by a separate act of observation ; and those truths 
which are either logically or mathematically involved in each 
other.* For example, there is no such dependence between 

* See this distinction admirably "expounded in "Whately's Logic — a 
work of profound judgment, and which effectually vindicates the honours 
of a science, that, since the days of Bacon, or rather (which is more 
recent) since the days of his extravagant because exclusive authority, it 
has been too much the fashion to depreciate. The author, if I might use 
the expression without irreverence, has given to Bacon the things which 
are Bacon's, and to Aristotle the things which are Aristotle's. He has 
strengthened the pretensions of logic, by narrowing them — that is, instead 
of placing all the intellectual processes under its direction, by assigning to 
it as its propei" subject the art of deduction alone. He has made most cor- 
rect distinction between the inductive and the logical : and it is by attending 
to the respective provinces of each, that we come to perceive the incompe- 
tency of mere logic for the purpose of discovery strictly so called. The 
whole chapter on discovery is particularly valuable — leading us clearly to 
discriminate between that which logic can, and that which it cannot 
achieve. It is an instrument, not for the discovery of truths properly new, 



324 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



the colour of a flower and its smell, as that the one can be 
reasoned from the other ; and, in every different specimen 
therefore, we, to ascertain the two facts of the colour and the 
smell, must have recourse to two observations. On the other 
hand, there is such a dependence between the proposition 
that self-preservation is the strongest and most general law 
of our nature, and the proposition that no man will starve if 
able and in circumstances to work for his own maintenance 
— that the one proposition can be deduced by inference 
from the other, as the conclusion from the premises of an 
argument. And still more there is such a dependence be- 
tween the proposition, that the planet moves in an elliptical 
orbit round the sun, having its focus in the centre of that 
luminary, and a thousand other propositions-— so that with- 
out a separate observation for each of the latter, they can 
be reasoned from the former ; just as an infinity of truths 
and properties can, without observation, be satisfactorily de- 
monstrated of many a curve from the simple definition of it. 
We do not affirm, that, in any case, we can establish a 
dogma, or make a discovery independently of all observation 
— any more than in a syllogism we are independent of ob- 
servation for the truth of the premises — both the major and 
the minor propositions being generally verified in this way ; 
while the connection between these and the conclusion, is 
all, in the syllogism, wherewith the art of logic has properly 
to do. In none of the sciences, is the logic of itself avail- 
able for the purposes of discovery ; and it can only con- 
tribute to this object, when furnished with sound data, the 
accuracy of which is determined by observation alone. This 

but for the discovery of truths which are enveloped or virtually contained 
in propositions already known. It instructs but does not inform ; and lias 
nought to do in syllogism with the truth of the premises, but only with the 
truth of the connection between the premises and the conclusion. 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN". 



325 



holds particularly true of the mixed mathematics, where the 
conclusions are sound, only in as far as the first premises 
are sound — which premises, in like manner, are not reasoned 
truths, but observed truths. Even in the pure mathematics, 
some obscurely initial or rudimental process of observation 
may Lave been necessary, ere the mind could arrive at its 
first conceptions, either of quantity or number. Certain it 
is, however, that, in all the sciences, however dependent on 
observation for the original data, we can, by reasoning on 
the data, establish an indefinite number of 'distinct and 
important and useful propositions — which, if soundly made 
out, observation will afterwards verify ; but which, anterior 
to the application of this test, the mind, by its own excogi- 
tations, may have made the objects of its most legitimate 
conviction. It is thus that, on the one hand, we, by the 
inferences of a sound logic, can, on an infinity of subjects, 
discover what should for ever have remained unknown, had 
it been left to the findings of direct observation ; and that, 
on the other hand, though observation could not have made 
the discovery, it never fails to attest it. Visionaries, on the 
one hand, may spurn at the ignoble patience and drudgery 
of observers : and ignorant practitioners, whether in the 
walks of business or legislation, may, on the other, raise 
their senseless and ^discriminate outcry against the reason- 
ers —but he who knows to distinguish between an hypothesis 
based on imagination, and a theory based on experience, and 
perceives how helpless either reason or observation is, when 
not assisted by the other, will know how to assign the parts, 
and to estimate the prerogatives of both. 

12. AY hen the mind has retired from direct converse with 
the external world, and brought to its own inner chamber of 
thought the materials which it has collected there, it then 



326 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



delivers itself up to its own processes — first, ascending ana- 
lytically from observed phenomena to principles, and then 
descending synthetically from principles to yet unobserved 
phenomena. We cannot but recognise it as an exquisite 
adaptation between the subjective and the objective, between 
the mental and the material systems— that the results of the 
abstract intellectual process and the realities of external 
nature should so strikingly harmonised It is exemplified 
in all the sciences, in the economical, and the mental, and 
the physical, and most of all in the physico- mathematical — 

* There are some fine remarks by Sir John Herschel, in his preliminary 
discourse on the study of Natural Philosophy, on this adaptation of the ab- 
stract ideas to the concrete realities, of the discoveries made in the region 
of pure thought to the facts and phenomena of actual nature— as when the 
properties of conic sections, demonstrated by a laborious analysis, re- 
mained inapplicable till they came to be embodied in the real masses and 
movements of astronomy. 

" These marvellous computations might almost seem to have been de- 
vised on purpose to show how closely the extremes of speculative refine- 
ment and practical utility can be brought to approximate." — HerscheVs 
Discourse, p. 28. 

" They show how large a part pure reason has to perform in the exa- 
mination of nature, and how implicit our reliance ought to be on that 
powerful and methodical system of rules and processes, which constitute 
the modern mathematical analysis, in all the more difficult applications of 
exact calculation to her phenomena. " p. 33. 

" Almost all the great combinations of modern mechanism, and many of 
its refinements and nicer improvements, are creations of pure intellect, 
grounding* its exertion upon a very moderate number of elementary pro- 
positions, in theoretical mechanics and geometry." p. 63. 

The discovery of the principle of the achromatic telescope, is termed by 
Sir John, "A memorable case in science, though not a singular one,, 
where the speculative geometer in his chamber, apart from the world, and 
existing among abstractions, has originated views of the noblest practical 
application." p. 255. 



CONSTITUTION OP AT AN. 



327 



as when Xewton, on the calculations and profound musings 
of his solitude, predicted the oblate spheroidal figure of the 
earth, and the prediction was confirmed by the mensurations 
of the academicians, both in the polar and equatorial regions ; 
or as, when abandoning himself to the devices and the dia- 
grams of his own construction, he thence scanned the cycles 
of the firmament, and elicited from the scroll of enigmatical 
characters which himself had framed, the secrets of a sublime 
astronomy, that high field so replete with wonders, yet sur- 
passed by this greatest wonder of all, the intellectual mastery 
which man has over it. That such a feeble creature should 
have made this conquest — that a light struck out in the 
little cell of his own cogitations should have led to a dis- 
closure so magnificent — that by a calculus of his own for- 
mation, as with the power of a talisman, the heavens, with 
their stupendous masses and untrodden distances, should 
have thus been opened to his gaze — can only be explained 
by the intervention of a Being having supremacy over all, 
and who has adjusted the laws of matter and the properties 
of mind to each other. It is only thus we can be made to 
understand how man, by the mere workings of his spirit, 
should have penetrated so far into the workmanship of 
Nature ; or that, restricted though he be to a spot of earth, 
he should nevertheless tell of the suns and the systems that 
be afar — as if he had travelled with the line and plummet in 
his hand to the outskirts of creation, or carried the torch of 
discovery round the universe. 

13. (3.) Our next adaptation is most notably exemplified 
in those cases, when some isolated phenomenon, remote and 
having at first no conceivable relation to human affairs, is 
nevertheless converted, by the plastic and productive intel- 
lect of man, into some application of mighty and important 
effect on the interests of the world. One example of this is 



828 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



the use that has been made of the occultations and emer- 
sions of J upiter's satellites, in the computation of longitudes, 
and so the perfecting of navigation. "When one contem- 
plates a subserviency of this sort fetched to us from afar, it 
is difficult not to imagine of it as being the fruit of some 
special adjustment, that came within the purpose of Him, 
who, in constructing the vast mechanism of Nature, over- 
looked not the humblest of its parts— but incorporated the 
good of our species, with the wider generalities and laws of 
a universal system.* The conclusion is rather enhanced 

* The author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, in his edition of 
Edwards' Treatise on the "Will, presents us with the following" energetic 
sentences on this subject. 

" Every branch of modern science abounds with instances of remote 
correspondence between the great system of the world, and the artificial 
(the truhj natural) condition to which knowledge raises them. If these 
correspondences were single or rare, they might be deemed merely for- 
tuitous ; like the drifting- of a plank athwart the track of one who is 
swimming: from a wreck. But when they meet us on all sides and invari- 
ably, we must be resolute in atheism not to confess that they are emanations 
from one and the same centre of wisdom and goodness. Is it nothing- more 
than a lucky accommodation which makes the polarity of the needle to sub- 
serve the purposes of the mariner ? or may it not safely be affirmed, both 
that the magnetic influence (whatever its primary intention may be) had 
reference to the business of navigation — a reference incalculably important 
to the spread and improvement of the human race ; and that the discovery 
and the application of this influence arrived at the destined moment in 
the revolution of human affairs, when, in combination with other events, 
it would produce the greatest effect ? Nor should we scruple to affirm 
that the relation between the inclination of the earth's axis and the con- 
spicuous star which, without a near rival, attracts even the eye of the 
vulgar, and shows the north to the wanderer on the wilderness or on the 
ocean, is in like manner a beneficent arrangement. Those who would 
spurn the supposition that the celestial locality of a sun, immeasurably 
remote from our system, should have reference to the accommodation of 
the inhabitants of a planet so inconsiderable as our own, forg-et the style 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 329 

than otherwise by the seemingly incidental way in which the 
telescope was discovered. The observation of the polarity 
of the magnet is an example of the same kind — and with the 
same result, in multiplying, by an enlarged commerce, the 
enjoyments of life, and speeding onward the science and 
civilization of the globe. There cannot a purer instance be 
given of adaptation between external nature and the mind 
of man — than when some material, that would have remained 
for ever useless in the hands of the unintelligent and un- 
thoughtful, is converted, by the fertility and power of the 
human understanding, into an instrument for the further 
extension of our knowledge or our means of gratification. 
The prolongation of their eyesight to the aged by means of 
convex lenses, made from a substance at once transparent 
and colourless — the force of steam, with the manifold and 
ever-growing applications which are made of it — the disco- 

of the Divine Works, which is, to serve some great or principal end, com- 
patibly with ten thousand lesser and remote interests. Man, if he would 
secure the greater, must neglect or sacrifice the less ; not so of the Omni- 
potent Contriver. It is a fact full of meaning-, that those astronomical 
phenomena, (and so others,) which offer themselves as available for the 
purposes of art, as for instance of navigation or geography, do not fully or 
effectively yield the end they promise, until after long and elaborate pro- 
cesses of calculation have disentangled them from variations, disturbing 
forces, and apparent irregularities. To the rude fact, if so we might 
designate it, a mass of recondite science must be appended, before it can 
be brought to bear with precision upon the arts of life. Thus the polarity 
of the needle or the eclipses of Jupiter's moons are as nothing to the mari- 
ner or the geographer, without the voluminous commentary furnished by 
the mathematics of astronomy. The fact of the expansive force of steam 
must employ the intelligence and energy of the mechanicians of the empire 
during a century, before the whole of its beneficial powers can be put in 
activity. Chemical, medical, and botanical science, is filled with parallel 
instances ; and they all affirm, in an articulate manner, the twofold pur- 
pose of the Creator — to benefit man and to educate him." 



330 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



very of platina, which, by its resistance to the fiercest heats, 
is so available in prosecuting the ulterior researches of 
chemistry* — even the very abundance and portability of 
those materials by which written characters can be multiplied, 
and, through the impulse thus given to the quick and copious 
circulation of human thoughts, mind acts with rapid diffusion 
upon mind, though at the distance of a hemisphere from 
each other — (conceptions and informations and reasonings, 
these products of the intellect alone, being made to travel 
over the world by the intervention of material substances) — - 
these, while but themselves only a few taken at random from 
the multitude of strictly appropriate specimens which could 
be alleged of an adaptation between the systems of mind and 
matter, are sufficient to mark an obvious contrivance and 
forth-putting of skill in the adjustment of the systems to 
each other. Enough has been already done to prove of 
mind, with its various powers, that it is the fittest agent 
which could have been employed for working upon matter : 
and of matter, with its various properties and combinations, 
that it is the fittest instrument which could have been placed 
under the disposal of mind. Every new triumph achieved 
by the human intellect over external nature, whether in the 

* " This among many such lessons will teach us that the most impor 
tantuses of natural objects are not those which offer themselves to us most 
obviously. The chief use of the moon for man's immediate purposes re- 
mained unknown to him for five thousand years from his creation. -And 
since it cannot but be that innumerable and most important uses remain 
to be discovered among" the materials and objects already known to us, as 
well as among those which the progress of science must hereafter disclose, 
we may here conceive a well-grounded expectation, not only of constant 
increase in the physical resources of mankind, and the consequent im- 
provement of their condition, but of continual accessions to our power of 
penetrating into the arcana of nature, and becoming acquainted with her 
highest laws."— Sir John HerscheVs Discourse, pp. 308, 309. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



331 



way of discovery or of art, serves to make the proof more 
illustrious. In the indefinite progress of science and inven- 
tion, the mastery of man over the elements which surround 
him is every year becoming more conspicuous — the pure 
result of adaptation, or of the way in which mind and matter 
have been conformed to each other ; the first endowed by 
the Creator with those powers which qualify it to command; 
the second no less evidently endowed with those corres- 
ponding susceptibilities which cause it to obey. 

14. (4.) The way is now prepared for our next adapta- 
tion, which hinges upon this — that the highest efforts of 
intellectual power, and to which few men are competent, the 
most difficult intellectual processes, requiring the utmost 
abstraction and leisure for their development, are often in- 
dispensable to discoveries, which, when once made, are found 
capable of those useful applications, the value of which is 
felt and recognized by all men. The most arduous mathe- 
matics had to be put into requisition, for the establishment 
of the lunar theory — without which our present lunar obser- 
vations could have been of no use for the determination of 
the longitude. This dependence of the popular and the 
practical on an anterior profound science runs through much 
of the business of life, in the mechanics and chemistry of 
manufactures as well as in navigation ; and indeed is more 
or less exemplified so widely, or rather universally, through- 
out the various departments of human industry and art, that 
it most essentially contributes to the ascendency of mind 
over muscular force in society — besides securing for mental 
qualities, the willing and reverential homage of the multitude. 
This peculiar influence stands complicated with other arrange- 
ments, requiring a multifarious combination, that speaks all 
the more emphatically for a presiding intellect, which must 
have devised and calculated the whole. We have already 



332 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



stated,* by what peculiarity in the soil it was, that a certain 
number of the species was exempted from the necessity of 
labour ; and without which, in fact, all science and civiliza- 
tion would have been impossible. We have also expounded 
in some degree the principle, which both originated the ex- 
isting arrangements of property, and led men to acquiesce 
in them. But still it is a precarious acquiescence, and 
liable to be disturbed by many operating causes of distress 
and discontent in society. If there be influences on the side 
of the established order of things, there are also counter- 
active influences on the opposite side, of revolt and irritation 
against it ; and by which, the natural reverence of men for 
rank and station may at length be overborne. In the pro- 
gress of want and demoralization among the people ; in the 
pressure of their increasing numbers, by which they at once 
outgrow the means of instruction, and bear more heavily on 
the resources of the land than before ; in the felt straitness 
of their condition, and the proportionate vehemence of their 
aspirations after enlargement — nothing is easier than to give 
them a factitious sense of their wrongs, and to inspire them 
with the rankling imagination of a heartless and haughty in- 
difference on the part of their lordly superiors towards them, 
whose very occupation of wealth, they may be taught to 
regard as a monopoly, the breaking down of which were an 
act of generous patriotism. Against these brooding elements 
of revolution in the popular mind, the most effectual preser- 
vative certainly, were the virtue of the upper classes, — or 
that our great men should be good men. But a mighty help 
to this, the next to it in importance, were, that to the power 
which lies in wealth, they should superadd the power which 
lies in knowledge — or that the vulgar superiority of mere 
affluence and station, should be strengthened in a way that 

* Part I., chap. vi. 29. 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



333 



would command the willing homage of all spirits, that is, by 
the mental superiority which their opportunities of lengthened 
and laborious education enable them to acquire. By a wise 
ordination of Nature, the possessors of rank and fortune, 
simply as such, have a certain ascendant power over their 
fellows ; and, by the same ordination, the possessors of learn- 
ing have an ascendency also — and it would mightily conduce 
to the strength and stability of the commonwealth, if these 
influences were conjoined, or in other words, if the scale of 
wealth and the scale of intelligence, in as far. as that was 
dependent on literary culture, could be made to harmonize. 
The constitution of science, or the adaptation which obtains 
between the objects of knowledge and the knowing facul- 
ties, is singularly favourable to the alliance for which we now 
plead — insomuch that, to sound the depths of philosophy, 
time and independence and exemption from the cares and 
labours of ordinary life seem indispensable ; and, on the 
other hand, profound discoveries, or a profound acquaintance 
with them, are sure to command a ready deference even from 
the multitude, whether on account of the natural respect 
which all men feel for pre-eminent understanding, or on 
account of the palpable utilities to which, in a system of 
things so connected as ours, even the loftiest and most re- 
condite science is found to be subservient. On the same 
principle that, in a ship, the skilful navigation of its captain, 
will secure for him the prompt obedience of the crew to all 
his directions ;* or that, in an army, the consummate gene- 

* " We have before us an anecdote communicated to us by a naval 
officer, (Captain Basil Hall,) distinguished for the extent and variety of his 
attainments, which shows how impressive such results may become in 
practice. He sailed from San Bias on the west coast of Mexico, and, after 
a voyage of 8000 miles, occupying- eighty-nine days, arrived off Rio 
Janeiro, having in this interval passed through the Pacific Ocean, rounded 
Cape Horn, and crossed the South Atlantic without making land, or even 



334 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



ralship of its commander will subordinate all the movements 
of the immense host, to the power of one controlling and 
actuating will— so, in general society, did wealth, by means 
of a thorough scholarship on the part of the higher classes, 
but maintain an intimate fellowship with wisdom and sound 
philosophy — then, with the same conservative influence as 
in these other examples, would the intellectual ascendency 

seeing a single sail, with, the exception of an American whaler off Cape 
Horn. Arrived within a week's sale of Rio, he set seriously about deter- 
mining, by lunar observations, the precise line of the ship's course, and its 
situation in it at a determinate moment, and having ascertained this within 
from five to ten miles, ran the rest of the way by those more ready and 
compendious methods, known to navigators, which can be safely employed 
for short trips between one known point and another, but which cannot be 
trusted in long voyages, where the moon is their only guide. The rest of 
the tale we are enabled by his kindness to state in his own words: — ' We 
steered towards Rio Janeiro for some days after taking the lunars above 
described, and having arrived within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast, I 
hove-to till four in the morning, when the day should break, and then bore 
up ; for although it was very hazy, we could see before us a couple of miles 
or so. About eight o'clock it became so foggy that I did not like to stand 
in farther, and was j ust bringing the ship to the wind again before sending 
the people to breakfast, when it suddenly cleared off, and I had the satis- 
faction of seeing the great sugar-loaf peak, which stands on one side of the 
harbour s mouth, so nearly right a-head that we had not to alter our course 
above a point, in order to hit the entrance of Rio. This was the first land 
we had seen for three months, after crossing so many seas, and being set 
backwards and forwards by innumerable currents and foul winds.' The 
effect on all on board might well be conceived to have been electric ; and 
it is needless to remark how essentially the authority of a commanding 
officer over his crew may be strengthened by the occurrence of such in- 
cidents, indicative of a degree of knowledge and consequent power beyond 
their reach." — HerscheVs Discourse, pp. 28, 29. 

It is an extreme instance of the connection between mental power and 
civil or political ascendency, though often verified in the history of the 
world — that military science has often led to the establishment of a mili- 
tary despotism. 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



335 



thus acquired, be found of mighty effect, to consolidate and 
maintain all the gradations of the commonwealth. 

15. It is thus that a vain and frivolous aristocracy, averse 
to severe intellectual discipline, and beset with the narrow 
prejudices of an order, let themselves down from that high 
vantage-ground on which fortune hath placed them — where, 
by a right use of the capabilities belonging to the state in 
which they were born, they might have kept their firm foot- 
ins: to the latest generations. Did all truth lie at the sur- 
face of observation, and was it alike accessible, to all men, 
they could not with such an adaptation of external nature to 
man's intellectual constitution, have realized the peculiar 
advantage on which we are now insisting. But it is because 
there is so much of important and applicable truth which 
lies deep and hidden under the surface, and which can only 
be appropriated by men who combine unbounded leisure 
with the habit or determination of strenuous mental effort — 
it is only because of such an adaptation, that they who are 
gifted with property are, as a class, gifted with the means, if 
they would use it, of a great intellectual superiority over the 
rest of the species. There is a strong natural veneration for 
wealth, and also a strong natural veneration for wisdom. It 
is by the union of the two that the horrors of revolutionary 
violence might for ever be averted from the land. Did our 
high- born children of affluence, for every ten among them, the 
mere loungers of effeminacy and fashion, or the mere lovers 
of sport and sensuality and splendour— did they, for every 
ten of such, furnish but one enamoured of higher gymnas- 
tics, the gymnastics of the mind ; and who accomplished 
himself for the work and warfare of the senate, by his deep 
and comprehensive views in all the proper sciences of a 
statesman, the science of government, and politics, and com- 
merce, and economics, and history, and human nature, — by 



336 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



a few gigantic men among them, thus girded for the services 
of patriotism, a nation might be saved — because arrested on 
that headlong descent, which, at the impulse of the popular 
will, it might else have made, from one measure of fair but 
treacherous promise, from one ruinous plausibility to another. 
The thing most to be dreaded, is that hasty and super- 
ficial legislation into which a government may be hurried by 
the successive onsets of public impatience, and under the 
impulse of a popular and prevailing cry. Now the thing 
most needed, as a counteractive to this evil, is a thoroughly 
intellectual parliament, where shall predominate that mascu- 
line sense which has been trained for act and application by 
masculine studies ; and where the silly watchword of theory 
shall not be employed, as heretofore, to overbear the lessons 
of soundly generalised truth — because, instead of being dis- 
cerned at a glance, they are fetched from the depths of philo- 
sophic observation, or shone upon by lights from afar, in the 
accumulated experience of ages. "We have infinitely more to 
♦apprehend from the demagogues than from the doctrinaires 
of our present crisis ; and it will require a far profounder 
attention to the principles of every question than many deem 
to be necessary, or than almost any are found to bestow, to 
save us from the crudities of a blindfold legislation.* 

* This mental superiority which the higher classes might and ought to 
cultivate, is not incompatible, but the contrary, with a general ascent in 
the scholarship of the population at large. On this subject we have else- 
where said — that " there is a bigotry on the side of endowed seminaries, 
which leads those whom it actuates to be jealous of popular institutions. 
And, on the other hand, there is a generous feeling towards these institu- 
tions, which is often accompanied with a certain despite towards the 
endowed and established seminaries. We think that a more comprehen- 
sive consideration of the actings and reactings which take place in society, 
should serve to abate the heats of this partisanship, and that what in 
one view is regarded as the conflict of jarring and hostile elements, should 



CONSTITUTION OE MAN. 



837 



16. And it augurs portentously for the coming destinies 
of our land, that, in the present rage for economy, such an 
indiscriminate havock should have been made — so that 
pensions and endowments or the reward or encouragement 
of science, should have had the same sentence of extinction 
passed upon them as the most worthless sinecures. The 
difficulties of our most sublime, and often too our most 
useful knowledge, make it inaccessible to all but to those 
who are exempt from the care of their own maintenance — 
so that unless a certain, though truly insignificant portion 

in another be rejoiced in as a luminous concourse of influences, tending* 
to accomplish the grand and beneficent result of an enlightened nation. It 
is just because we wish so well to colleges, that we hail the prosperity of 
mechanic institutions. The latter will never outrun the former, but so 
stimulate them onwards, that the literature of our higher classes shall 
hold the same relative advancement as before over the literature of our 
artisans. It will cause no derangement and no disproportion. The light 
which shall then overspread the floor of the social edifice, will only cause 
the lustres which are in the higher apartments to blaze more gorgeously. 
The basement of the fabric will be greatly more elevated, yet without 
violence to the symmetry of the whole architecture ; for the pinnacles and 
upper stories of the building" will rise as proudly and as gracefully as ever 
above the platform which sustains them. There is indefinite room in truth 
and science for an ascending- movement, and the taking- up of higher posi- 
tions ; and if, in virtue of a popular philosophy now taug'ht in schools of 
art, we are to have more lettered mechanics, this will be instantly followed 
up by a hig-her philosophy in colleg-es than heretofore ; and in virtue of 
which we shall also have a more accomplished gentry, a more intellec- 
tual parliament, a more erudite clergy, and altogether a greater force mid 
fulness of mind throughout all the departments of the commonwealth. 
The whole of society will ascend tog-ether, and therefore without disturb- 
ance to the relation of its parts. But, in every stage of this progress, the 
endowed colleges will continue to be the highest places of intellect; the 
country's richest lore, and its most solid and severest philosophy will always 
be found in them." — Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical En- 
dowments. 

Z 



338 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



of the country's wealth, be expended in this way, all high 
and transcendental philosophy, however conducive as it 
often is to the strength as well as glory of a nation, must 
vanish from the land. "When the original possessors of 
wealth neglect individually this application of it ; and, 
whether from indolence or the love of pleasure, fall short of 
that superiority in mental culture, of which the means have 
been put into their hands — we can only reproach the ignoble 
preference, and lament the ascendant force of sordid and 
merely animal propensities, over the principles of their 
better and higher nature. But when that which individuals 
do in slavish compliance with their indolence and passions, 
the state is also found to do in the exercise of its deliberate- 
wisdom, and on the maxims of a settled policy — when, 
instead of ordaining any new destination of wealth in favour 
of science, it would divorce and break asunder the goodly 
alliance by a remorseless attack on the destinations of wiser 
and better days — such a Gothic spoliation as this, not a 
deed of lawless cupidity, but the mandate of a senate-house,, 
were a still more direct and glaring contravention to the 
wisdom of Nature, and to the laws of that economy which 
Nature hath instituted. The adaptation of which we now 
speak, between the external system of the universe and the 
intellectual system of man, were grossly violated by such an 
outrage ; and it is a violence which Nature would resent by 
one of those signal chastisements, the examples of which are 
so frequent in history. The truth is, that, viewed as a 
manifestation of the popular will which tumultuates against 
all that wont to command the respect and admiration of 
society, and is strong enough to enforce its dictations — it 
may well be regarded as one of the deadliest symptoms of a 
nation ripening for anarchy, that dread consummation by 
which, however, the social state, relieved of its distempers, 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



339 



is at length renovated like the atmosphere by a storm, after 
throwing off from it the dregs and the degeneracy of an iron 
age. # 

17. (5.) We shall do little more than state two other 
adaptations, although more might be noticed, and all do 
admit of a much fuller elucidation than we can bestow upon 
them. And first, there is a countless diversity of sciences, 
and correspondent to this, a like diversity in the tastes and 
talents of men, presenting, therefore, a most beneficial adap- 
tation, between the objects of human knowledge and the 
powers of human knowledge. Even in one science there are 
often many subdivisions, each requiring a separate mental 
fitness, on the part of those who might select it as their own 
favourite walk, which they most love, and in which they are 
best qualified to excel. In most of the physical sciences, 
how distinct the business of the observation is from that of 
the philosophy ; and how important to their progress, that, 
for each appropriate work, there should be men of appropriate 
faculties or habits, who, in the execution of their respective 
tasks, do exceedingly multiply and enlarge the products of 
the mind — even as the grosser products of human industry 
are multiplied by the subdivision of employment. f It is 
well, that, for that infinite variety of intellectual pursuits, 
necessary to explore all the recesses of a various and com- 
plicated external nature, there should be a like variety of 

* The same effect is still more likely to ensue from the spoliation and 
secularization of ecclesiastical property. 

t " There is no accounting for the difference of minds or inclinations, 
which leads one man to observe with interest the development of pheno- 
mena, another to speculate on their causes ; but were it not for this happy- 
disagreement, it may be doubted whether the higher sciences could ever 
have attained even their present degree of perfection." — Sir John IlerscheVs 
Discourses, p. 131. 



340 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



intellectual predilections and powers scattered over the 
species — a congruity between the world of mind and the 
world of matter, of the utmost importance, both to the 
perfecting of art, and to the progress and perfecting of 
science. Yet it is marvellous of these respective labourers, 
though in effect they work simultaneously and to each 
other's hands, how little respect or sympathy or sense of 
importance, they have for any department of the general 
field, for any section in the wide encyclopaedia of human learn- 
ing, but that on which their own faculties are concentrated 
and absorbed. "We cannot imagine aught more dissimilar 
and uncongenial, than the intentness of a mathematician on 
his demonstrations and diagrams, and the equal intentness, 
nay delight of a collector or antiquarian on the faded manu- 
scripts and uncial characters of other days. Yet in the 
compound result of all these multiform labours, there is a 
goodly and sustained harmony, between the practitioners 
and the theorists of science, between the pioneers and the 
monarchs of literature — even as in the various offices of a 
well-arranged household, although there should be no 
mutual intelligence between the subordinates who fill them, 
there is a supreme and connecting wisdom, which presides 
over and animates the whole. The goodly system of philo- 
sophy, when viewed as the product of innumerable contribu- 
tions, by minds of all possible variety and men of all ages — 
bears like evidence to the universe being a spacious house- 
hold, under the one and consistent direction of Him who is 
at once the Parent and the Master of a universal family.* 
18. And here it is not out of place to remark, that it is 

* The benefit of subdivision in science should lead to the multiplication 
of professorships in our literary institutes, and at all events should prevent 
the parsimonious suppression of them, or the parsimonious amalgamation 
of the duties of two or more into one. 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



341 



the very perfection of the Divine workmanship, which leads 
every inquirer to imagine a surpassing worth and grace and 
dignity in his own special department of it. The fact is 
altogether notorious, that, in order to attain a high sense of 
the importance of any science, and of the worth and beauty 
of the objects which it embraces — nothing more is necessary 
than the intent and persevering study of them. "Whatever 
the walk of philosophy may be on which man shall enter, 
that is the walk which of all others he conceives to be most 
enriched, by all that is fitted to entertain the intellect, or 
arrest the admiration of the enamoured scholar. The astro- 
nomer who can unravel the mechanism of the heavens, or the 
chemist who can trace the atomic processes of matter upon 
earth, or the metaphysician who can assign the laws of 
human thought, or the grammarian who can discriminate 
the niceties of language, or the naturalist who can classify 
the flowers and the birds and the shells and the minerals 
and the insects which so teem and multiply in this world of 
wonders — each of these respective inquirers is apt to become 
the worshipper of his own theme, and to look with a sort of 
indifference, bordering on contempt, towards what he ima- 
gines the far less interesting track of his fellow-labourers. 
Xow each is right in the admiration he renders to the grace 
and grandeur of that field which himself has explored ; but 
all are wrong in the distaste they feel, or rather in the dis- 
regard they cast on the other fields which they have never 
entered. We should take the testimony of each to the 
worth of that which he does know, and reject the testimony 
of each to the comparative worthlessness of that which he 
does not know ; and then the unavoidable inference is that 
that must be indeed a replete and a gorgeous universe in 
which we dwell — and still more glorious the Eternal Mind 
from whose conception it arose, and whose prolific fiat gave 



342 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



birth to it, in all its vastness and variety. And instead of 
the temple of science having been reared, it were more 
proper to say, that the temple of nature had been evolved. 
The archetype of science is the universe ; and it is in the 
disclosure of its successive parts, that science advances from 
step to step —not properly raising any new architecture of 
its own, but rather unveiling by degrees an architecture that 
is old as the creation. The labourers in philosophy create 
nothing ; but only bring out into exhibition that which was 
before created. And there is a resulting harmony in their 
labours, however widely apart from each other they may 
have been prosecuted — not because they have adjusted one 
part to another, but because the adjustment has been already 
made to their hands. There comes forth, it is true, of their 
labours, a most magnificent harmony, yet not a harmony 
which they have made, but a pre-existent harmony which 
they have only made visible— so that when tempted to 
idolize philosophy, let us transfer the homage to Him who 
both formed the philosopher's mind, and furnished his 
philosophy with all its materials, 

19. (6.) The last adaptation that we shall instance is rather 
one of mind to mind, and depends on a previous adaptation 
in each mind of the mental faculties to one another. For 
the right working of the mind, it is not enough that each 
of its separate powers shall be provided with adequate 
strength — they must be mixed in a certain proportion — for 
the greatest inconvenience might be felt, not in the defect 
merely, but in the excess of some of them. We have heard 
of too great a sensibility in the organ of hearing, giving rise 
to an excess in the faculty, which amounted to disease, by 
exposing the patient to the pain and disturbance of too 
many sounds, even of those so faint and low, as to be 
naudible to the generality of men. In like manner we can 



CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 



343 



imagine the excess of a property purely mental, of memory 
for example, amounting to a malady of the intellect, by 
exposing the victim of it to the presence and the perplexity 
of too many ideas, even of those whictf are so insignificant, 
that it would lighten and relieve the mind, if they had no 
place there at all.* Certain it is that the more full and 
circumstantial is the memory, the more is given for the 
judgment to do — its proper work of selecting and comparing 
becoming the more oppressive, with the number and dis- 
traction of irrelevant materials. It would have been better 
that these had found no original admittance within the 
chamber of recollection; or that only things of real and 
sufficient importance had left an enduring impression upon 
its tablet. In other words, it would have been better, that 
the memory had been less susceptible or less retentive than 
it is ; and this may enable us to perceive the exquisite 
balancing that must have been requisite, in the construction 
of the mind— -when the very defect of one faculty is thus 
made to aid and to anticipate the operations of another. He 
who alone knoweth the secrets of the spirits, formed them 
with a wisdom to us unsearchable. 

20. Certain it is, however, that variety in the proportion 
of their faculties, is one chief cause of the difference between 
the minds of men. And whatever the one faculty may be, 
in any individual, which predominates greatly beyond the 
average of the rest — that faculty is selected as the charac- 
teristic by which to distinguish him ; and thus he may be 

* It has been said of Sir James Macintosh, that the excess of his 
memory was felt by him as an incumbrance in the writing- of history — 
adding as it did to the difficulty of selection. It is on the same principle 
that the very multitude of one's ideas and words may form an obstacle to 
extemporaneous speaking-, as has been illustrated by Dean Swift under 
the comparison of a thin church emptying- faster than a crowded one. 



344 



THE INTELLECTUAL 



designed as a man of judgment, or information, or fancy, or 
wit, or oratory. It is this variety in their respective gifts, 
which originates so beautiful a dependence and reciprocity 
of mutual services among men ; and, more especially, when 
any united movement or united counsel is requisite, that 
calls forth the co-operation of numbers. No man combines 
all the ingredients of mental power ; and no man is wanting 
in all of them — so that, while none is wholly independent of 
others, each possesses some share of importance in the 
commonwealth. The defects, even of the highest minds, 
may thus need to be supplemented, by the counterpart 
excellencies of minds greatly inferior to their own — and, in 
this way, the pride of exclusive superiority is mitigated ; and 
the respect which is due to our common humanity is more 
largely diffused throughout society, and shared more equally 
among all the members of it. Nature hath so distributed 
her gifts among her children, as to promote a mutual help- 
fulness, and, what perhaps is still more precious, a mutual 
humility among men. 

21. In almost all the instances of mental superiority, it 
will be found, that it is a superiority above the average level 
of the species, in but one thing — or that arises from the 
predominance of one faculty above all the rest. So much is 
this the case, that [when the example does occur, of an 
individual so richly gifted as to excel in two of the general 
or leading powers of the mind, his reputation for the one 
will impede the establishment of his reputation for the 
other. There occurs to us one very remarkable case of the 
injustice, done by the men who have but one faculty, to the 
men who are under the misfortune of having two. In the 
writings of Edmund Burke, there has at length been dis- 
covered a rich mine of profound and strikingly just reflection 
on the philosophy of public affairs. But he felt as well as 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



345 



thought, and saw the greatness and beauty of things, as well 
as their relations ; and so, he could at once penetrate the 
depths, and irradiate the surface of any object that he con- 
templated. The light which he flung from him entered the 
very innermost shrines and recesses of his subject ; but then 
it was light tinged with the hues of his own brilliant ima- 
gination, and many gazing at the splendour, recognised not 
the weight and the wisdom underneath. They thought him 
superficial, but just because themselves arrested at the sur- 
face ; and either because, with the capacity of emotion but 
without that of judgment, or because with the capacity of 
judgment but without that of emotion — they, from the very 
meagreness and mutilation of their own faculties, were 
incapable of that complex homage, due to a complex object 
which had both beauty and truth for its ingredients. Thus 
it was that the very exuberance of his genius injured the 
man, in the estimation of the pigmies around him ; and the 
splendour of his imagination detracted from the credit of his 
wisdom. Fox had the sagacity to see this ; and posterity 
now see it. ]N~ow that, instead of a passing meteor, he is 
fixed by authorship in the literary hemisphere, men can 
make a study of him ; and be at once regaled by the poetry, 
and instructed by the profoundness of his wondrous lucu- 
brations. 



346 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



CHAPTEE II 

On the Connection between the Intellect and the Emotions. 

1. The intellectual states of the mind, and its states of 
emotion, belong to distinct provinces of the mental constitu- 
tion— the former to the percipient, and the latter to what 
Sir James Macintosh would term the emotive or pa thematic 
part of our nature. Bentham applies the term pathology to 
the mind in somewhat the same sense — not expressive, as in 
medical science, of states of disease under which the body 
suffers, but expressive in mental science, of states of suscep- 
tibility, under which the mind is in any way affected, whether 
painfully or pleasurably. Had it not been for the previous 
usurpation or engagement of this term by medical writers, who 
restrict the application of it to the distempers of our corporeal 
frame it might have been conveniently extended to all the sus- 
ceptibilities of the mental constitution — even when that con- 
stitution is in its healthful and natural state. According to the 
medical use of it, the Greek iraayw, from which it is derived, 
is understood in the sense of the Latin translation, patior, to 
suffer. According to the sense which we now propose for 
it, in treating of mental phenomena, the Greek Travyu would 
be understood in the sense of the Latin translation, afficior, 
to be affected. When treating of the mental pathology, we 
treat not of mental sufferings, but, more general, of mental 
susceptibilities. The navx^ of the Greek, whence the term 
comes, is equivalent, either to the c patior' or the c afficior' 
of Latin, — the former signifying f to suffer,' and the latter 
simply ' to be affected,' — the former sense being the one that 
is retained in medical, and the latter in mental pathology. 
The two differ as much the one from the other as passion 
does from affection, or the violence of a distempered does 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 34^ 

from the due and pacific effect of a natural influence. Even 
the Latin ' patior,' might be translated, not merely into 
4 suffer,' but into ' the being acted upon,' or into 'the being 
passive.' Medical pathology is the study of those diseases 
under which the body suffers. Mental pathology is the study 
of all those phenomena that arise from influences acting upon 
the mind viewed as passive, or as not putting forth any choice 
or activity at the time. Now, when thus defined, it will 
embrace all that we understand by sensations and affections 
and passions. It is not of my will that certain colours 
impress their appropriate sensations upon my eye, or that 
certain sounds impress their sensations upon my ear. It is 
not of my will, but of an organization which I often cannot 
help, that I am so nervously irritable, under certain disagree- 
able sights, and disagreeable noises. It is not of my will 
but of an aggressive influence which I cannot withstand, that 
when placed on an airy summit, I forthwith swim into gid- 
diness, and am seized with the imagination, that if 1 turn 
not my feet and my eyes from the frightful precipice's 
margin, I shall topple to its base. Neither is it of my will 
that I am visited with such ineffable disgust at the sight of 
some loathsome animal. But these are strong instances, and 
perhaps evince a state bordering upon disease. Yet we may 
gather from them some general conception of what is meant 
by mental pathology, whose design it is to set forth all those 
states of feeling into which the mind is thrown, by the 
influence of those various objects that are fitted to excite 
either the emotions or the sensitive affections of our nature. 
And, to keep the subject of mental pathology pure, we shall 
suppose these states of feeling to be altogether unmodified 
by the will, and to be the very states which result from the 
law of the external senses, or the laws of emotion operating 



348 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



upon us at the time, when the mind is either wholly power- 
less or wholly inactive. To be furnished with one compre- 
hensive term, by which to impress a mark on so large an 
order of phenomena, must be found very commodious ; aud 
though we have adverted to the etymology of the term, yet 
in truth, it is of no consequence whether the process of deri- 
vation be accurate or not — seeing that the most arbitrary 
definition, if it only be precise in its objects, and have a 
precisely expressed sense affixed to it, can serve all the pur- 
poses for which a definition is desirable. 

2. The emotions enter largely into the pathological depart- 
ment of our nature. They are distinguishable both from the 
appetites and the external affections, in that they are mental 
and not bodily — though, in common with these, they are 
characterised by a peculiar vividness of feeling, which dis- 
tinguishes them from the intellectual states of the mind. It 
may not be easy to express the difference in language ; but 
we never confound them in specific instances — being at no 
loss to which of the two classes we should refer the acts of 
memory and judgment ; and to which we should refer the senti- 
ments of fear, or gratitude, or shame, or any of the numerous 
affections and desires of which the mind is susceptible. 

3. The first belonging to this class that we shall notice 
is the desire of knowledge, or the principle of curiosity — 
having all the appearance and character of a distinct and 
original tendency in the mind, implanted there for the pur- 
pose to which it is so obviously subservient. This principle 
evinces its reality and strength in very early childhood, even 
anterior to the faculty of speech — as might be observed in 
the busy manipulations and exploring looks of the little 
infant, on any new article that is placed within its reach ; 
and afterwards, by its importunate and never-ending ques- 



INTELLECT ASD THE EMOTIONS. 



349 



tions. It is this avidity of knowledge which forms the great 
impellent to the acquisition of it — being in fact the hunger 
of the mind, and strikingly analogous to the corresponding 
bodily appetite, in those respects by which each is mani- 
fested to be the product of a higher wisdom than ours, the 
effect of a more providential care than man would have taken 
of himself. The corporeal appetency seeks for food as its 
terminating object, without regard to its ulterior effect in 
the sustaining of life. The mental appetency seeks for 
.knowledge, the food of the mind, as its terminating object, 
v, ithout regard to its ulterior benefits, both in the guidance 
of life, and the endless multiphcation of its enjoyments. The 
prospective wisdom of man could be trusted with neither of 
these great interests ; and so the urgent appetite of hunger 
had to be provided for the one, and the like urgent principle 
of curiosity had to be provided for the other. Each of them 
bears the same evidence of a special contrivance for a spe- 
cial object— and that by one who took a more comprehensive 
view of our welfare than we are capable of taking for our- 
selves ; and made his own additions to the mechanism, for 
the express purpose of supplementing the deficiency of 
human foresight. The resemblance between the two cases 
goes strikingly to demonstrate how a mental constitution 
might as effectually bespeak the hand of an intelligent 
Maker, as does a physical or material constitution. It is 
true, that, with the great majority of men, the intellectual 
is not so urgent or imperious as is the animal craving. But 
even for this difference, we can perceive a reason, which 
would not have been found under a random economy of 
things. Each man's hunger would need to be alike strong, 
or at least strong enough to ensure the taking of food for 
himself — for to this effect he will receive no benefit from 
another man's hunger. But there is not the same reason 



350 CONFECTION BETWEEN THE 

why each man's curiosity should be alike strong — for the 
curiosity of one man might subserve the supply of informa- 
tion and intellectual food to the rest of the species. To 
enlarge the knowledge of the world, it is not needed that 
all men should be endowed with such a strength of desire 
for it, as to bear them onward through the toils of original 
investigation. The dominant, the aspiring curiosity, which 
impels the adventurous traveller to untrodden regions, will 
earn discoveries, not for himself alone, but for all men— if 
their curiosity be but strong enough for the perusal of his 
agreeable record, under the shelter and amid the comforts 
of their own home. And it is so in all the sciences. The 
unquenchable thirst of a few is ever drawing supplies of new 
truth, which are shared in by thousands. There is an ob- 
vious meaning in this variety, between the stronger curiosity 
of the few who discover truth, and the weaker curiosity of 
the many who acquire it. The food which hunger impels 
man to take, is for his own aliment alone. The fruit of that 
study to which the strength of his own curiosity impels 
him, may become the property of all men. 

4. Eut, apart from this singularity, we behold in curi- 
osity, viewed as a general attribute, a manifest adaptation to 
the circumstances in which man is placed. If, on the one 
hand, we look to the rich and exhaustless variety of truth, 
in a universe fraught with the materials of a most stupendous 
and ever-growing philosophy, and each department of which 
is fitted to stimulate and regale the curiosity of the human 
mind — we should say of such an external nature as this 3 
that, presenting a most appropriate field to the inquisitive 
spirit of our race, it was signally adapted to the intellectual 
constitution of man. Or if, on the other hand, besides look- 
ing to the world as a theatre for the delightful entertain- 
ment of our powers, we behold it, in the intricacy of its 



INTELLECT A1STD THE EMOTIONS. 



351 



phenomena and laws, in its recondite mysteries, in its deep 
and difficult recesses, yet conquerable to an indefinite ex- 
tent by the perseverance of man, and therefore as a befitting 
theatre for the busy and most laborious exercise of his 
powers — we should say of such an intellectual constitution 
as ours, that it was signally adapted to the system of ex- 
ternal nature. It would require a curiosity as strong and 
steadfast as Nature hath given us, to urge us onward through 
the appalling difficulties of a search so laborious. Hunger 
is the great impellent to corporeal labour, and the gratifica- 
tion of this appetite is its reward. Curiosity is a great 
impellent to mental labour, and, whether we look to the 
delights or the difficulties of knowledge, we cannot fail to 
perceive, that this mental appetency in man, and its coun- 
terpart objects in Nature, are suited with marvellous exact- 
ness to each other. 

5. But the analogy between the mental and the corporeal 
affections does not stop here. The appetite of hunger would, 
of itself, impel to the use of food — although no additional 
pleasure had been annexed to the use of it, in the gratifica- 
tions of the palate. The sense of taste, with its various 
pleasurable sensations, has ever been regarded as a distinct 
proof of the benevolence and care of Grod. And the same is 
true of the delights which are felt by the mind in the acqui- 
sition of knowledge — as when truth discloses her high and 
hidden beauties to the eye of the enraptured student ; and 
he breathes an ethereal satisfaction, having in it the very 
substance of enjoyment, though the world at large cannot 
sympathise with it. The pleasures of the intellect, though 
calm, are intense ; insomuch, that a life of deep philosophy 
were a life of deep emotion, when the understanding receives 
of its own proper aliment — having found its way to those 
harmonies of principle, those goodly classifications of phe- 



352 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



nomena, which the disciples of science love to gaze upon. 
And the whole charm does not lie in the ultimate discovery. 
There is a felt triumph in the march, and along the footsteps 
of the demonstration which leads to it ; in the successive 
evolutions of the reasoning, as well as its successful con- 
clusion. Like every other enterprise of man, there is a 
happiness in the current and continuous pursuit, as well as in 
the final attainment — as every student in geometry can tell, 
who will remember, not only the delight he felt on his arrival 
at the landing place, but the delight he felt when guided 
onward by the traces and concatenations of the pathway. 
Even in the remotest abstractions of contemplative truth 
there is a glory and a transcendental pleasure, which the 
world knoweth not ; but which becomes more intelligible 
because more embodied, when the attention of the inquirer 
is directed to the realities of substantive nature. And though 
there be few who comprehend or follow Newton in his gi- 
gantic walk, yet all may participate in his triumphant feeling 
when he reached that lofty summit, where the whole mystery 
and magnificence of Nature stood submitted to his gaze — an 
eminence won by him through the power and the patience of 
intellect alone ; but from which he descried a scene more 
glorious far than imagination could have formed, or than ever 
had been pictured and set forth in the sublimest visions of 
poetry. 

6. It is thus that while the love of beauty, operating 
upon the susceptible imagination of the theorist, is one of 
those seducing influences which lead men astray from the 
pursuit of experimental truth — he, in fact, who at the out- 
set resists her fascinations, because of his supreme respect 
for the lessons of observation, is at length repaid by the 
discoveries and sights of a surpassing loveliness. The in- 
ductive philosophy began its career by a renunciation, 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 353 

painful we have no doubt at first to many of its disciples, 
of all the systems and harmonies of the schoolmen. But in 
, the assiduous prosecution of its labours, it worked its way 
to a far nobler and more magnificent harmony at the last — 
to the real system of the universe, more excellent than all 
the schemes of hnman conception — not in the solidity of its 
evidence alone, but as an object of tasteful contemplation. 
The self-denial which is laid upon us by Bacon's philosophy, 
like all other self-denial, whether in the cause of truth or 
virtue, hath its reward. In giving ourselves up to its 
guidance, we have often to quit the fascinations of beautiful 
theory ; but, in exchange for these, are at length regaled 
by the higher and substantial beauties of actual nature. 
There is a stubbornness in facts before which the specious 
ingenuity is compelled to give way ; and perhaps the mind 
never suffers more painful laceration, than when, after 
having vainly attempted to force Nature into a compliance 
with her own splendid generalizations, she, on the appearance 
of some rebellious and impracticable phenomenon, has to 
practise a force upon herself, when she thus finds the goodly 
speculation superseded by the homely and unwelcome expe- 
rience. It seemed at the outset a cruel sacrifice, when the 
world of speculation, with all its manageable and engaging 
simplicities, had to be abandoned; and, on becoming the 
pupils of observation, we, amid the varieties of the actual 
world around us, felt as if bewildered, if not lost, among the 
perplexities of a chaos. This was the period of greatest 
sufferance, but it has had a glorious termination. In return 
for the assiduity wherewith the study of nature had been 
prosecuted, she hath made a more abundant revelation of 
her charms. Order hath arisen out of confusion ; and in 
the ascertained structure of the universe, there are now 
. ? ound to be a state and a sublimity, beyond all that was 

2 A 



'354 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



.ever pictured by the mind, in the days of her adventurous 
and unfettered imagination. Even viewed in the light of a 
noble and engaging spectacle for the fancy to dwell upon, 
who would ever think of comparing with the system of 
Newton, either that celestial machinery of Des Cartes, 
which was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that still 
more cumbrous machinery of cycles and epicycles which was 
the progeny of a remoter age ! It is thus that at the 
commencement of this observational process, there is an 
abjuration of beauty. But it soon reappears in another 
form, and brightens as we advance; and there at length 
arises, on solid foundation, a fairer and goodlier system, than 
ever floated in airy romance before the eye of genius. # Nor 
is it difficult to perceive the reason of this. What we dis- 
cover by observation, is the product of the divine imagination 
— bodied forth by creative power, into a stable and enduring 
universe. What we devise by our own ingenuity is but the 
product of human imagination. The one is the solid arche- 
type of those conceptions which are in the mind of God. 
The other is the shadowy representation of those conceptions 
which are in the mind of man. It is even as with the 
labourer, who, by excavating the rubbish which hides and 

* In the " Essays of John Sheppard,"— a work very recently published, 
and alike characterised by the depth of its Christian intelligence and 
feeling-, and the beauty of its thoug-hts— there occurs the following- passage, 
founded on the Manuscript Notes, taken by the author, of Playfair's 
Lectures. " It was impressively stated in a preliminary lecture by a late 
eminent Scottish Professor of Natural Philosophy, that the actual physical 
wonders of creation far transcend the boldest and most hyperbolical 
imaginings of poetic minds ; ' that the reason of Newton and Galileo took 
a sublimer flig-ht than the fancy of Milton and Ariosto.' That this is 
quite true I need only refer you to a few astronomical facts gianeed at in 
subsequent pag-es of this volume in order to evince." — Sheppard' s Essays, 
p 69. 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



355 



besets some noble architecture, does more for the gratifi- 
cation of our taste, than if, with his unpractised hand, he 
should attempt to regale us by plans and sketches of his 
own. And so the drudgery of experimental science, in 
exchange for that beauty, whose fascinations it resisted at 
the outset of its career, has evolved a surpassing beauty from 
among the realities of truth and nature. The pain of the 
initial sacrifice is nobly compensated at the last. The views 
contemplated through the medium of observation, are found, 
not only to have a justness in them, but to have a grace 
and a grandeur in them, far above all the visions which are 
contemplated through the medium of fancy, or which ever 
regaled the fondest enthusiast in the enraptured walks of 
speculation and poetry. But the toils of investigation must 
be endured first, that the grace and the grandeur might be 
enjoyed afterwards. The same is true of science in all its 
departments, not of simple and sublime astronomy alone, 
but throughout of terrestrial physics ; and most of all in 
chemistry, where the internal processes of actual and ascer- 
tained Nature are found to possess a beauty, which far 
surpasses the crude though specious plausibilities of other 
days. We perceive in this, too, a fine adaptation of the 
external world to the faculties of man ; a happy ordination 
of Nature by which the labour of the spirit is made to pre- 
cede the luxury of the spirit, or every disciple of science 
must strenuously labour in the investigation of its truth ere 
he can luxuriate in the contemplation of its beauties. It is 
by the patient seeking of truth first, that the pleasures of 
taste and imagination are superadded to him. For, in these 
days of stern and philosophic hardihood, nothing but evi- 
dence, strict and scrutinized and thoroughly sifted evidence, 
will secure acceptance for any opinion. "Whatever its 
authoriy, whatever its engaging likelihood may be, it must 



356 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



first be made to undergo the freest treatment from human 
eyes and human hands. It is at one time stretched on the 
rack of an experiment. At another it has to pass through 
fiery trial in the bottom of a crucible. At another, it has 
to undergo a long questionary process, among the fumes, 
and the nitrations, and the intense heat of a laboratory ; 
and, not till it has been subjected to all this inquisitorial 
torture and survived it, is it preferred to a place in the 
temple of truth, or admitted among the laws and the lessons 
of a sound philosophy. 

7. But, beside those rewards and excitements to science 
which lie in science itself, as the curiosity which impels to 
the prosecution of it, and the delights of prosperous study, 
and the pleasures that immediately spring from the con- 
templation of its objects — besides these, there is a remoter 
but not less powerful influence, and to which indeed we owe 
greatly more than half the philosophy of our world. We 
mean the respect in which high intellectual endowments are 
held by general society. "We are not sure but that the love 
of fame has been of more powerful operation, in speeding 
onward the march of discovery, than the love of philosophy 
for the sake of its own inherent charms ; and there are 
thousands of our most distinguished intellectual labourers, 
who, but for an expected harvest of renown, would never 
have entered on the secret and solitary prosecution of their 
arduous walk. We are abundantly sensible, that this appe- 
tency for fame may have helped to vulgarize both the 
literature and science of the country ; that men, capable of 
the most attic refinement in the one, may, for the sake of 
a wider popularity, have descended to verbiage and the false 
splendour of a meretricious eloquence ; and that men, capable 
of the deepest research and purest demonstration in the 
other, may, by the same unworthy compliance with the 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



357 



flippancy of the public taste, have exchanged the profound 
argument for the showy and superficial illustration — pre- 
ferring to the homage of the exalted few, the attendance 
and plaudits of the multitude. It is thus, that when access 
to the easier and lighter parts of knowledge has been sud- 
denly enlarged, the heights of philosophy may be abandoned 
for a season— the men who wont to occupy there, being 
tempted to come down from their elevation, and hold con- 
verse with that increasing host, who have entered within 
the precincts, and now throng the outer courts of the temple. 
It is thus, that at certain transition periods, in the intel- 
lectual history of the species, philosophy may sustain a 
temporary depression — from which when she recovers, we 
shall combine, with the inestimable benefit of a more en- 
lightened commonalty, both the glory and the substantial 
benefit of as cultured a literature and as lofty and elaborate 
a philosophy as before. And we greatly mistake, if we 
think, that in those minds of nobler and purer ambition, 
the love of fame is extinguished, because they are willing 
to forego the bustling attendance and the clamorous 
applauses of a crowd. They too are intensely set on praise, 
but it must be such praise as that of Atticus, "the incense 
of which, though not copious, is exquisite — that precious 
aroma, which fills not the general atmosphere, but by which 
the few and the finer spirits of our race are satisfied. Theirs 
is not the broad daylight of popularity. It is a fame of a 
higher order, upheld by the testimony of the amateurs or 
the elite in science, and grounded on those rare achievements 
which the public at large can neither comprehend nor sym- 
pathise with. ' They sit on a hill apart,' and there breathe 
of an ethereal element, in the calm brightness of an upper 
region, rather than in that glare and gorgeousness by which 
the eye of the multitude is dazzled. It is not the eclat of 



358 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



a bonfire for the regaling of a mob, but the enduring though 
quiet lustre of a star. The place which they occupy is aloft 
in the galaxy of a nation's literature, where the eyes of the 
more finely intellectual gaze upon them with delight, and 
the hearts only of such are lighted up in reverence and con 
amore towards them. Theirs is a high though hidden praise, 
flowing in secret course through the savans of a community, 
and felt by every true academic to be his most appropriate 
reward." # 

8. The emotions of which we have yet spoken stand con- 
nected, either in the way of cause or of consequence, with 
the higher efforts of the intellect — as the curiosity which 
prompts to these efforts, and the delights attendant on the 
investigation and discovery of truths which reward them ; 
beside the grateful incense of those praises, whether general 
or select, that are awarded to mental superiority, and form 
perhaps the most powerful incitement to the arduous and 
sustained prosecution of mental labour. But there is a 
connection of another sort, between the emotions and the 
intellect of still higher importance — because of the alliance 
which it establishes between the intellectual and the moral 
departments of our nature. "We often speak of the pleasure 
that we receive from one class of the emotions, as those of 
taste — of the danger or disagreeableness of another, as anger 
or fear or envy— of the obligation that lies upon us to cherish 
and retain certain other emotions, insomuch that the desig- 
nation of virtuous is generally given to them, as gratitude, 
and compassion, and the special love of relatives or country, 
and in one word all the benevolent affections of our nature. 
Now, however obvious when stated, it is not sufficiently ad- 
verted to, even when studying the philosophy of the subject, 

* Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical Endowments, pp. 165? 
166. 



INTELLECT A!N T D THE MOTIONS. 



359 



and still less in the practical government and regulation of 
the heart — that, for the very being of each of these specific 
emotions in the heart, there must a certain appropriate 
and counterpart object, whether through the channel of 
sense or of the memory, be present to the thoughts. We 
can only feel the emotion of beauty, in the act of beholding 
or conceiving a beautiful object ; an emotion of terror, in 
the view of some danger which menaces us ; an emotion of 
gratitude, in the recollection of a past kindness, or of the 
benefactor who conferred it. Such then is the necessary 
dependence between perception and feeling, that, without 
the one, the other cannot possibly be awakened. Present 
an object to the view of the mind, and the emotion suited 
to that object, whether it be love or resentment, or terror, 
or disgust, must consequently arise ; and with as great sure- 
ness, as, on presenting visible things of different colour to 
the eye, the green and red and yellow and blue impress 
their different and peculiar sensations on the retina. It is 
very obvious, that the sensations owe their being to the 
external objects, without the presence and the perception of 
which they could not possibly have arisen. And it should 
be alike obvious, that the emotions owe their being to a 
mental perception, whether by sense or by memory, of the 
objects which are fitted to awaken them. Let an object be 
introduced to the notice of the mind, and its correlative 
emotion instantly arises in the heart ; let the object be for- 
gotten or disappear from the mental view, and the emotion 
disappears along with it. 

9. We deem it no exception to the invariableness of that 
relation which subsists between an object and its count er- 
part emotion, that, in many instances, a certain given object 
may be present and in full view of the observer, without 
awakening that sensibility which is proper to it. A spccta-. 



360 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



cle of pain does generally, but not always, awaken com- 
passion. It would always, we think, if a creature in agony 
were the single object of the mind's contemplation. But the 
person, now in suffering, may be undergoing the chastisement 
of some grievous provocation ; and the emotion is different, 
because the object is really different — an offender who has 
excited the anger of our bosom, and, in the view of whose 
inflicted sufferings, this indignant feeling receives its gratifi- 
cation. Or the pain may be inflicted by our own hand on 
an unoffending animal in the prosecution of some cruel 
experiment. If compassion be wholly unfelt, it is not be- 
cause in this instance the law has been repealed which 
connects this emotion with the view of pain ; but it is 
because the attention of the mind to this object is displaced 
by another object ; even the discovery of truth — and so what 
but for this might have been an intense compassion, is 
overborne by an intenser curiosity. And so with all the 
other emotions. Were danger singly the object of the 
mind's contemplation, fear, we think, would be the universal 
feeling ; but it may be danger connected with the sight or 
the menaces of an insulting enemy who awakens burning 
resentment in the heart, and when anger arises fear is gone ; 
or it may be danger shared with fellow-combatants, whose 
presence and observation kindle in the bosom the love of 
glory, and impel to deeds of heroism — not because any 
law which connects, and connects invariably, certain emotions 
with certain objects, is in any instance reversed or sus- 
pended ; but because, in this conflict and composition of 
moral forces, one emotion displaced another from the feel- 
ings, only, however, because one object displaced another 
from the thoughts. Still, in every instance, the object is 
the stepping-stone to the emotion — insomuch, that if we 
want to recall a certain emotion, we must recall to the mind 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS, 



361 



that certain object which awakens it ; if we want to cease 
from the emotion, we must cease from thinking of its ob- 
ject, we must transfer the mind to other objects, or occupy 
it with other thoughts. 

10. This connection between the percipient faculties of 
the mind and its feelings, reveals to us a connection between 
the intellectual and the moral departments of our nature. 
How the one is brought instrumentally to bear upon the 
other, will be afterwards explained. But meanwhile it is 
abundantly obvious, that the presence or the absence of certain 
feelings stands connected with the presence or the absence of 
certain thoughts. We can no more break up the connection 
between the thought of any object that is viewed mentally, 
and the feeling which it impresses on the heart, than we can 
break up the connection between the sight of any object 
that is viewed materially, and the sensation which it im- 
presses upon the retina. If we look singly and steadfastly 
to an object of a particular colour, as red, there is an organic- 
necessity for the peculiar sensation of redness, from which 
we cannot escape, but by shutting our eyes, or turning them 
away to objects that are differently coloured. If we think 
singly and steadfastly on an object of a particular character, 
as an injury, there seems an organic necessity also for the 
peculiar emotion of resentment, from which there appears 
to be no other way of escaping, than by stifling the thought, 
or turning the mind away to other objects of contemplation. 
Now we hear both of virtuous emotions and of vicious emo- 
tions ; and it is of capital importance to know how to retain 
the one, and to exclude the other — which is by dwelling in 
thought on the objects that awaken the former, and dis- 
charging from thought the objects that awaken the latter. 
And so it is by thinking in a certain way that wrong sensi- 
bilities are avoided, and right sensibilities are upholden. It 



362 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



is by keeping up a remembrance of the kindness, that we 
keep up the emotion of gratitude. It is by forgetting the 
provocation, that we cease from the emotion of anger. It 
is by reflecting on the misery of a fellow-creature in its 
vivid and affecting details, that pity is called forth. It is by 
meditating on the perfections of the Godhead, that we 
cherish and keep alive our reverence for the highest virtue 
and our love for the highest goodness. In one word, thought 
is at once the harbinger and the sustainer of feeling : and 
this, of itself, forms an important link of communication 
between the intellectual and the moral departments of our 
nature. 

11. We shall not be able to complete our views, either on 
the moral character of the emotions, or their dependence on 
the percipient faculties of the mind, until we have estab- 
lished a certain ulterior principle which comes afterwards 
into notice. Neither do we now expatiate on their uses, of 
which we have already given sufficient specimens, in our 
treatment of the special affections. We would only remark 
at present, on their vast importance to human happiness — 
seeing that a state of mental happiness cannot even be so 
much as imagined without a state of emotion. They are 
the emotions, in fact, and the external affections together, 
which share between them the whole interest, whether plea- 
surable or painful, of human existence. And what a vivid 
and varied interest that is, may be rendered evident by a 
mere repetition of those words which compose the nomen- 
clature of our feelings— as hope, and fear, and grief, and ]oy> 
and love, diversified into so many separate affections towards 
wealth, fame, power, knowledge, and all the other objects 
of human desire, besides the tasteful and benevolent emo- 
tions—which altogether keep their unremitting play in the 
heart, and sustain or fill up the continuity of our sensible 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



363 



being. It says enough for the adaptation of external nature 
to a mental constitution so complexly and variously endowed 
that numerous as these susceptibilities are, the world is 
crowded with objects that keep them in full and busy occu- 
pation. The details of this contemplation are inexhaustible ; 
and we are not sure but that the general lesson of the 
Divine care or Divine benevolence, which may be founded 
upon these, could be more effectually learned by a close 
attention of the mind upon one specific instance, than by a 
complete enumeration of all the instances, with at the same 
time only a briefer and slighter notice of each of them. 

12. And it would make the lesson all the more impres- 
sive, if, instead of selecting as our example an emotion of 
very exalted character, and of which the influence on human 
enjoyment stood forth in bright daylight to the observation 
of all, such as the sensibility of a heart that was feelingly 
alive to the calls of benevolence, or feelingly alive to the 
beauties of nature — we should take for our case some other 
kind of emotion, so common, perhaps, as to be ignobly 
familiar, and on which one would scarcely think of con- 
structing aught so dignified or so serious as a theological 
argument. Yet we cannot help thinking, that it most em- 
phatically tells us of the teeming, the profuse benevolence 
of the Deity — when we reflect on those homelier and those 
every-day sources, out of which the whole of human life, 
through the successive hours of it, is seasoned with enjoy- 
ment ; and a most agreeable zest is imparted from them to 
the ordinary occasions of converse and companionship among 
men. When the love of novelty finds in the walks of 
science the gratification that is suited to it, we can reason 
gravely on the final cause of the emotion, and speak of the 
purpose of Nature, or rather of the Author of Nature, in 
having instituted such a reward for intellectual labour. But 



364 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



we lose sight of all the wisdom and all the goodness that are 
connected with this mental ordination — when the very same 
principle, which in the lofty and liberal savant, we call the 
love of novelty, becomes, in the plain and ordinary citizen, 
the love of news. Yet in this humbler and commonplace 
form, it is needless to say how prolific it is of enjoyment — 
giving an edge, as it were, to the whole of one's conscious 
existence, and its principal charm to the innocent and en- 
livening gossip of every social party. Perhaps a still more 
effective exemplification may be had in another emotion of 
this class, that which arises from our sense of the ludicrous 
— which so often ministers to the gaiety of man's heart, 
even when alone ; and which, when he congregates with his 
fellows, is ever and anon breaking forth into some humorous 
conception, that infects alike the fancies of all, and finds 
vent in one common shout of ecstasy. Like every other 
emotion, it stands allied with a perception as its antecedent, 
the object of the perception in this instance being the con- 
junction of things that are incongruous with each other — 
on the first discovery or conception of which, the mirth be- 
gins to tumultuate in the heart of some one ; and on the 
first utterance of which, it passes with irrepressible sympathy 
into the hearts of all who are around him — whence it obtains 
the same ready discharge as before, in a loud and general 
effervescence. To perceive how inexhaustible the source of 
this enjoyment is, we have only to think of it in connection 
with its cause : and then try to compute, if we can, all the 
possibilities of wayward deviation, from the sober literalities 
of truth and nature, whether in the shape of new imaginations 
by the mind of man, or of new combinations and events in 
actual history. It is thus that the pleasure connected with 
our sense of the ludicrous, forms one of the most current 
gratifications of human life ; nor is it essential that there 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



365 



should be any rare peculiarity of mental conformation in 
order to realize it. We find it the perennial source of a 
sort of gentle and quiet delectation, even to men of the most- 
sober temperament, and whose habit is as remote as possible 
from that of fantastic levity, or wild and airy extravagance. 
When acquaintances meet together in the street, and hold 
colloquy for a few minutes, they may look grave enough, if 
business or politics or some matter of serious intelligence be 
the theme — yet how seldom do they part before some corus- 
cation of playfulness has been struck out between them ; and 
the interview, though begun perhaps in sober earnest, but 
seldom passes off without some pleasantry or other to en- 
liven it. We should not dwell so long upon this part of 
the human constitution, were there not so much of happi- 
ness and so much of benevolence allied with it — as is 
obvious, indeed, from the very synonymes, to which the 
language employed for the expression of its various pheno- 
mena and feelings have given rise. To what else but to the 
pleasure we have in the ludicrous is it owing, that a ludi- 
crous observation has been termed a pleasantry; or how 
but to the affinity between happiness and mirth can we 
ascribe it, that the two terms are often employed as equiva- 
lent to each other ; and whence but from the strong 
connection which subsists between benevolence and humour 
can it be explained, that a man is said to be in good humour 
when in a state of placidness and cordiality with all who 
are around him ? We are aware that there is not a single 
disposition wherewith Nature hath endowed us which may 
not be perverted to evil ; but when we see so much both of 
human kindness and of human enjoyment associated with 
that exhilaration of heart to which this emotion is so con- 
stantly giving rise — ministering with such copiousness, both 
to the smiles of the domestic hearth, and the gaieties of 



366 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



festive companionship — we cannot but regard it as the pro- 
vision of an indulgent Father, who hath ordained it as a 
sweetener or an emollient amid the annoyances and the ills 
which flesh is heir to. 

13. It were difficult to compute the whole effect of this 
ingredient, in alleviating the vexations of life ; but certain 
it is, that the ludicrous is often blended with the annoy- 
ances which befall us ; and that its operation, in lightening 
.the pressure of what might have otherwise been viewed as 
somewhat in the light of calamity, is far from inconside- 
rable. This balancing of opposite emotions, suggested by 
different parts of the same complex event or object, and the 
effect of the one if a pleasant emotion, in assuaging the 
painfulness of the other, is not an uncommon phenomenon 
in the exhibitions of human feeling. A very obvious speci- 
men of this is afforded by an acquaintance in the act of 
falling. There is no doubt an incongruity between the 
moment of his walking uprightly, and with the fall antici- 
pation of getting forward in that attitude to the object 
whither he is bending — and the next moment of his floun- 
dering in the mud, and hastening with all his might to 
gather himself up again. They who philosophise upon the 
laws of succession in the events of Nature, have a great 
demand for such successions as are immediate. They go 
busily in quest of the contiguous links, and properly con- 
ceive that if any one hidden step be yet interposed, between 
the two which they regularly observe to follow each other, 
they have not completed the investigation, till that step also 
have been ascertained. It is, therefore, so far an advantage 
in regard to the above phenomenon, that there does not 
appear to be time even for the most rapid and fugitive inter- 
vention — for only let it occur in the presence of lookers-on, 
and, with the speed of lightning, will it be followed up by 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



367 



the instant and obstreperous glee of a whole host of specta- 
torship. 

14. But this very exhibition may give rise to a wholly 
different emotion. The provocative to laughter lies in the 
awkwardness of the fall. Let the awkwardness be con- 
ceived to abide as it was, and this other ingredient to be 
added, the severity of a fall — that a limb is fractured, or 
that a swoon, a convulsion, or a stream of blobd is the im- 
mediate consequence. In proportion to the hurt that was 
sustained, would be the sympathy of far the greater number 
of the by-standers ; and this might be so heightened by the 
palpable sufferings of him to whom the accident has be- 
fallen, that the sense of the ludicrous might be entirely 
overborne. 

15. The two provocatives are the awkwardness of the 
fall and its severity. The two emotions are the mirth and 
the compassion. The one of these may so predominate over 
the other as to leave the mind under its entire and single 
ascendency. A mathematician would require the point at 
which, by a gradual increase or diminution upon either of 
the two elements, they were mutually neutralized — or the 
transition was made from the one to the other of them. In 
this we may not be able to satisfy him. But all may have 
been sensible of an occasion, when the two were so delicately 
poised, that the mind positively vibrated— so as to make a 
sort of tremulous and intermediate play between these dis- 
tinct and nearly opposite emotions. This is one of those 
nicer exhibitions of our nature that one feels an interest in 
remarking ; and many perhaps may recollect the instances, 
when even some valued friend hath smarted pretty seriously, 
under some odd or ludicrous mishap in which he hath been 
involved, and when they have felt themselves in a state of 
most curious ambiguity, between the pity which they ought 



368 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



to feel, and the levity which they were not able to repress. 
The peculiarities of this midway condition are greatly 
aggravated, if there be so many acquaintances who share it 
among them, and more especially, if they meet together and 
talk over the subject of it— -in which case, it will be no sin- 
gular display of our mysterious nature, although the visita- 
tions of a common sympathy should be found to alternate 
with the high-sounding peals of a most rapturous and un- 
controllable merriment. 

16. We cannot fail to perceive, in this instance too, how 
inseparable the alliance is between perception and feeling. 
According as the mind looks, so is the heart affected. When 
we look to the awkwardness of the mischance, whatever it 
may be, we become gay. When we look to its severity, we 
become sad. It is instructive to observe with what fidelity 
the heart follows the mind in this process, and how which- 
ever the object is that for the time is regarded by the one, 
it is sure to be responded to by an appropriate emotion from 
the other. 

17. We should not have ventured on these illustrations 
but for the lesson which they serve to establish. They 
prove the extent to which a sense of the ludicrous might 
lighten and divert the painfulness of those serious feelings 
to which humanity is exposed. It is true that much evil 
may be done, when it puts to flight, as it often does, seri- 
ousness of principle ; but, on the other hand, there is un- 
questionable good done by it, when it puts to flight, either 
the seriousness of resentment, or the seriousness of suffer- 
ing. And when we think of its frequent and powerful 
effect, both in softening the malignant asperities of debate, 
and in reconciling us to those misadventures and pettier 
miseries of life, which, if not so alleviated, would keep us 
in a state of continual festerment — we cannot but regard 



INTELLECT AXD THE EMOTIONS. 



even this humbler part of the constitution of man, as a 
palpable testimony both to the wisdom and goodness of 
Him who framed us.* 

18. Before quitting this department of the subject, we may 
may advert, not to an individual peculiarity, but to the re- 
spective characters by which two classes of intellect are dis- 
tinguished, and to the effect of their mutual action and 
reaction on the progress of opinion in the world. 

* "The advantages which we derive from our susceptibility of this 
species of emotion, are, in their immediate influence on the cheerfulness, 
and therefore on the general happiness of society, sufficiently obvious. 
How many hours would pass wearily along, but for those pleasantries of 
wit, or of easier and less pretending gaiety, which enliven what would 
have been dull, and throw many bright colours on what would have been 
gloomy ! AVe are not to estimate these accessions of pleasure lightly, be- 
cause they relate to objects that may seem trilling, when considered 
together with those more serious concerns, by which our ambition is occu- 
pied, and in relation to which, in the success or failure of our various 
projects, we look back on the past months or years of our life as fortunate 
or unfortunate. If these serious concerns alone were to be regarded, we 
might often have been very fortunate and very unhappy, as in other c ir- 
cumstances we might often have had much happiness in the hours and 
days of years, which terminate at last in the disappointment of some 
favourite scheme. It is good to travel with pure and balmy airs and 
cheerful sunshine, though we should not find, at the end of our journey, 
the friend whom we wished to see ; and the gaieties of social converse, 
though they are not, in our journey of life, what we travel to obtain, are 
during the continuance of our journey at once a freshness which we 
breathe, and a light that gives every object to sparkle to our eyes with ;i 
radiance that is not its own/' Brown's Lectures — Lecture 59. But this 
emotion is allied with benevolence as well as with enjoyment. Then) il 
perhaps not a more welcome topic at the tables of the great, than the 
characteristic peculiarities or oddities of humble life — and we have no 
doubt that along with the amusement which is felt in the cottage anecdotes 
of a domain, there is often awukene I by them, a benevolent interest in 
the wellbeing of the occupiers. 

2 B 



370 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



19. The first of these intellectual tendencies may be 
seen in those who are distinguished by their fond and tena- 
cious adherence to the existing philosophy, and by their 
indisposition to any changes of it. They feel it painful to 
relinquish their wonted and established habits of thought — 
as if the mind were to suffer violence, by having to quit its 
ancient courses, and to unlearn the opinions of other days. 
We have no doubt that the love of repose, the aversion to 
that mental labour which is requisite even for the under- 
standing of a new system, or at least for the full comprehen- 
sion and estimate of its proofs — enters largely into this 
dislike for all novelties of speculation, into this determined 
preference for the doctrines in which they have been edu- 
cated — although the associations too of taste and reverence 
share largely in the result. It is thus that the old are more- 
disinclined to changes ; and there is a peculiar reason why 
schools and corporations of learning should make the stur- 
diest resistance to them. It is a formidable thing to make 
head against that majority within the walls of every vene- 
rable institute, which each new opinion has to encounter at 
the outset ; and more especially, if it tend to derange the 
methods of a university, or unsettle the long established prac- 
tice of its masters. This will explain that inveteracy of 
long possession, which, operating both in many individual 
minds and in the bosom of colleges, gives formation and 
strength to what may be termed the conservative party in 
science or in the literary commonwealth — that party which 
maintains the largest and most resolute contest with all 
new opinions, and will not give way, till overpowered by 
the weight of demonstration, and energy of the public voice 
in their favour. 

20. Opposed to this array of strength on the side of 
existing principles, we have the incessant operations of what 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 



371 



may be termed the movement party in science or in the 
literary commonwealth — some of whom are urged onward by 
the mere love of novelty and change ; others by the love of 
truth ; and very many by a sort of ardent and indefinite 
imagination of yet unreached heights in philosophy, and of 
the new triumphs which await the human mind in its inter- 
minable progress from one brilliant or commanding discovery 
to another. "We have often thought that a resulting op- 
timism is the actual effect of the play or collision that is 
constantly kept up between these two rival parties in the 
world of letters. On the one hand it is well that philosophy 
should not be a fixture, but should at length give way to the 
accumulating force of evidence. But on the other hand it is 
well, that it should require a certain, and that a very con- 
siderable force of evidence, ere it shall quit its present holds, 
or resign the position which it now occupies. We had rather 
that it looked with an air of forbidding authority on the mere 
likelihoods of speculation, than that, lightly set agog by every 
specious plausibility, it should open its schools to a restless 
and rapid succession of yet undigested theories. It is possible 
to hold out too obstinately and too long ; but yet it is well 
that a certain balance should obtain between the adhesive 
and the aggressive forces in the world of speculation ; anc 1 
that the general mind of society should have at least enough 
of the sedative in its composition, to protect it from aught 
like violent disturbance, or the incursion of any rash adven- 
turer in the field of originality. And for this purpose it is 
well, that each novelty, kept at bay for a time, and made io 
undergo a sufficient probation, should be compelled tho- 
roughly to substantiate its claims — ere it be admitted to takr 
a place beside the philosophy which is recognised by all the 
authorities, and received into all the institutes of the land. 
21. And they are the very same principles, which, when 



372 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



rightly blended, operate so beneficially, not in philosophy 
alone, but in politics. There is no spirit which requires 
more to be kept in check, than that of the mere wantonness 
of legislation ; and so far from being annoyed by that indis- 
position to change, which is rather the characteristic of all 
established authorities, we should regard it in the light of a 
wholesome counteractive, by which to stay the excesses of 
wild and wayward innovators. There is a great purpose 
served in society by that law of nature, in virtue of which it 
is that great bodies move slowly. It would not answer, if 
a government were to veer and to vacillate with every breath 
of speculation — if easily liable to be diverted from the stead- 
fastness of their course, by every lure or by every likelihood 
which sanguine adventurers held out to them. It is well, 
that in the ruling corporation there should be a certain 
strength of resistance, against which all splendid imaginations 
and all unsound and hollow plausibilities, might spend their 
force and be dissipated ; and so far from complaining of it as 
an impracticable engine which is so hard and difficult of 
impulse, we should look upon its very unwieldiness in the 
light of a safeguard, without which we should be driven to 
and fro by every wind of doctrine on a troubled sea that 
never rests. On these accounts we feel inclined, that, in the 
vessel of the body politic, there should be a preponderance 
of ballast over sail ; and that it really is so, we might put to 
the account of that optimism, which, with certain reserva- 
tions, obtains to a very great degree in the framework and 
throughout the whole mechanism of human society. 

22. But this property in the machine of a government to 
which we now advert, does not preclude that steady and 
sober-minded improvement which is all that is desirable. It 
only restrains the advocates of improvement from driving too 
rapidly. It does not stop, it only retards their course by a 



INTELLECT A]ST> THE EMOTIONS. 



373 



certain number of defeats and disappointments, which, if 
their course be iudeed a good one, are but the stepping- 
stones to their ultimate triumph. Ere that the victory is 
gotten, they must run the gauntlet of many reverses and 
many mortifications ; and they are not to expect that by one, 
but by several and successive blows of the catapulta, invete- 
rate abuses and long established practices can possibly be 
overthrown. It is thus, in fact, that every weak cause is 
thrown back into the nonentity whence it sprung, and that 
every cause of inherent goodness or worth is ultimately 
carried — rejected, like the former, at its first and earliest 
overtures ; but, unlike the former, coming back every time 
with a fresh weight of public feeling and public demonstration 
in its favour, till, like the abolition of the slave trade or that 
of commercial restrictions, causes which had the arduous 
struggle of many long years to undergo, it at length obtains 
the conclusive seal upon it of the highest authority in the 
land, and a seal by which the merits of the cause are far 
better authenticated, than if the legislature were apt to 
fluctuate at the sound of every new and seemly proposal. 
AVe have therefore no quarrel with a certain vis inertice in a 
Legislature, Only let it not be an absolute fixture ; and 
there is the hope, witli perseverance, of all that is really 
important or desirable in reformation. The sluggishness 
that has been ascribed to great corporations is, in the present 
instance, a good and desirable property — as being the means 
of separating the chaff from the wheat of all those overtures, 
that pour in upon representatives from every quarter of the 
land ; and, so far from any feeling of annoyance at the 
retardation to which the best of them is subjected, it should 
be most patiently and cheerfully acquiesced in, as being in 
fact the process, by which it brightens into prosperity, and 
at length its worth and its excellence are fully manifested. 



374 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



23. It is not the necessary effect of this peculiar mechan- 
ism, it is but the grievous perversion of it, when the corrupt 
inveteracy has withstood improvement so long, that ere it 
could be carried, the assailing force had to gather into the 
momentum of an energy that might afterwards prove mis- 
chievous, when the obstacle which provoked it into action 
had at length been cleared away. It is then that the vessel 
of the state, which might have been borne safely and pros- 
perously onward in the course of ages, by a steady breeze 
and with a sufficiency of ballast, as if slipped from her 
moorings is drifted uncontrollably along, and precipitated 
from change to change with the violence of a hurricane. 



CHAPTEE III. 
On the Connection between the Intellect and the Will. 

1. There is distinction made between a mental suscepti- 
bility and a mental power. Should we attempt to define it, 
we might say of the power, that it implies a reference to 
something consequent, and of the susceptibility that it 
implies a reference to something antecedent. It is thus 
that a volition is conceived to indicate the former, and an 
emotion to indicate the latter. Anger would be spoken of 
rather as a susceptibility of the mind than as a power ; and 
will, rather as a power than as a susceptibility. We view 
anger in connection with the provocatives which went before 
it ; and so, regarding it as an effect, we conceive of the 
mind in which this effect has been wrought, as being at the 
time in a state of subject passiveness. We view the will in 
connection with the deeds which follow on its determinations ; 
and so, regarding it as a cause, we conceive of the mind 



INTELLECT AXD THE WILL. 



375 



when it wills as being in a state of active efficiency. And 
jet a determination of the will may be viewed not merely as 
the prior term to the act which flows from it, but also as the 
posterior term to the influence which gave it birth — or, in 
other words, either as the forthgoing of a power or as the 
result of a susceptibility. It is thus that desire, which, on 
looking backward to the cause from whence it sprung, we 
should call a susceptibility — on looking forward to the effect 
which it prompts for tte attainment of its object, we should 
call an impellent ; and thus depth of feeling is identical, or 
at least, in immediate contact with decision and intensity of 
purpose. 

2. But in our intent prosecution of this analysis, and use 
of those appropriate terms which are employed for expressing 
the results of it, we have often to desert the common lan- 
guage, and are apt to lose sight of certain great and palpable 
truths, of which that language is the ordinary vehicle. 
"When tracing the intermediate steps, between the first 
exposure of the mind to a seducing influence, and the deed 
or perpetration of enormity into which it is hurried, we are 
engaged in what may properly be termed a physical inquiry 
— as much so as, when passing from cause to consequent, we 
are attending to any succession or train of phenomena in 
the material world. But it is when thus employed that we 
are apt to lose sight of the moral character of that which we 
are contemplating ; and to forget when or at what point of 
the series it is that the designation whether of virtuous or 
vicious, the charge whether of merit or demerit, comes to 
be applicable.* It is well that, amid all the difficulties 

* Dr. Brown has well distinguished between the two inquiries in the 
following" sentences: — " In one very important respect, however, the 
inquiries, relating- to the physiology of mind, differ from those which 
relate to the physiology of our animal frame. If we could render our- 



376 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



attendant on the physiological inquiry, there should be such 
a degree of clearness and uniformity in the moral judgments 
of men — insomuch that the peasant can, with a just and 
prompt discernment equal to that of the philosopher, seize 
on the real moral characteristics of any action submitted to 
his notice, and pronounce on the merit or demerit of him 
who has performed it. It is in attending to these popular 
or rather universal decisions, that we learn those phenomena 
which are of main importance to our argument— now that, 

selves acquainted with the intimate structure of our bodily organs, and 
all the changes which take place, in the exercise of their various functions, 
our labour, with respect to them, might be said to terminate. But though 
our intellectual analysis were perfect, so that we could distinguish, in our 
most complex thought or motion, its constituent elements, and trace with 
exactness the series of simpler thoughts which have progressively given 
rise to them, other inquiries, equally or still more important, would remain. 
We do not know all which is to be known of the mind when we know all 
its phenomena, as we know all which can be known of matter, when we 
know the appearances which it presents, in every situation in which it is 
possible to place it, and the manner in which it then acts or is acted upon, 
by other bodies. When we know that man has certain affections and 
passions, there still remains the great inquiry, as to the propriety or 
impropriety of these passions, and of the conduct to which they lead. 
We have to consider, not only how he is capable of acting, but also, 
whether, acting in the manner supposed, he would be fulfilling a duty, or 
perpetrating a crime. Every enjoyment which man can confer on man, 
and every evil which he can reciprocally inflict or suffer, thus become 
objects of two sciences — first, of that intellectual analysis which traces the 
happiness and misery, in their various forms and sequences, as mere 
phenomena or states of the substance mind ; — and secondly, of that ethical 
judgment, which measures our approbation and disapprobation, estimating, 
with more than judicial scrutiny, not merely what is done, but what is 
scarcely thought in secrecy and silence, and discriminating some element 
of moral good or evil, in all the physical good and evil, which it is in our 
feeble power to execute, or in our still frailer heart to conceive and 
desire.*' — Browns Lectures, Lecture i. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 



377 



after having bestowed a separate attention on the moral and 
intellectual constitutions of human nature, we are investi- 
gating the connection which is between them. 

3. The first of those popular or rather universal decisions, 
which we shall at present notice, is, that nothing is moral or 
immoral which is not voluntary. A murderer may be con- 
ceived, instead of striking with the dagger in his own hand, 
to force it, by an act of refined cruelty, into the hand of him 
who is the dearest relative or friend of his devoted victim ; 
and, by his superior strength, to compel the struggling and 
the reluctant instrument to its grasp. He may thus confine 
it to the hand, and give impulse to the arm of one who 
recoils in utmost horror from that perpetration, of which he 
has been made, as it were, the material engine ; and could 
matters be so contrived, as that the real murderer should be 
invisible, while the arm and the hand that inclosed the 
weapon, and the movements of the ostensible one, should 
alone be patent to the eye of the senses— then he, and not 
the other, would be held by the by-stander as chargeable 
with the guilt. But so soon as the real nature of the trans- 
action came to be understood, this imputation would be 
wholly and instantly transferred. The distinction would 
at once be recognised between the willing agent in this deed 
of horror, and the unwilling instrument. There would no 
more of moral blame be attached to the latter, than to the 
weapon which inflicted the mortal blow ; and on the former 
exclusively the whole burden of the crime and its condemna- 
tion would be laid. And the simple difference which gives 
rise to the whole of this moral distinction in the estimate 
between them is, that with the one the act was with the 
will ; with the other it was against it. 

4. The will may be spoken of either as a faculty of the 
mind, or it may denote one separate and individual act of 



378 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



willing. He willed to take a walk with me. It was his will 
so to do. But there is another term which is more properly 
expressive of the act, and is not at all expressive of the 
faculty. Those terms which discriminate, and which restrict 
language to a special meaning, are very convenient both in 
science and in common life. The will then may express 
both the faculty and the act of willing. But the act of 
willing has been further expressed by a term appropriated 
wholly to itself — and that is, volition. Mr. Locke defines 
volition to be " an act of the mind, knowingly exerting that 
dominion it takes itself to have over any part of the man, 
by employing it in, or withholding it from any particular 
action." And Dr. Eeid more briefly, but to the same effect, 
says that it is — " the determination of the mind to do or 
not to do something which we conceive to be in our power." 
He very properly remarks, however, that, after all, deter- 
mination is only another word for volition ; and he excuses 
himself, at the same time, from giving any other more 
logical definition — on the plea, that simple acts of the mind 
do not admit of one. 

5. There is certainly a ground, in the nature and actual 
workings of the mental constitution, for the distinction, 
which has been questioned of late, between will and desire. 
Desire has been thus defined by Locke — " It is the uneasi- 
ness man finds in himself, upon the absence of any thing, 
whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it," 
— an uneasiness which many may remember to have felt in 
their younger days, at the sight of an apple of tempting 
physiognomy, that they would fain have lain hold of, but 
were restrained from touching by other considerations. 
The desire is just the liking that one has for the apple ; and 
by its effectual solicitations, it may gain over the will to its 
side — in which case, through the medium of a volition, the 



INTELLECT A>~D THE WILL. 



379 



apple is laid hold of, and turned to its natural application. 
But the will may, and often does, refuse its consent ; and 
we then better perceive the distinction between the desire 
and the will, when we thus see them in a state of opposition 
— or when the urgency of the desire is met by other urgencies, 
which restrain the indulgence of it. One might be con- 
ceived, as having the greatest appetency for the fruit, and 
vet knowing it to be injurious to his health — so that, how- 
ever strong his desires, his will keeps its ground against 
their solicitations. Or he may wish to reserve it for one 
of his infant children ; and so his will sides with the second 
desire against the first, and carries this latter one into 
execution. Or he may reflect, after all, that the apple is 
not his own property, or that perhaps he could not pull it 
from among the golden crowds and clusters around it, 
without injury to the tree upon which it is hanging ; and 
so he is led by the sense of justice to keep both the one and 
the other desire at abeyance — and the object of temptation 
remains untouched, just because the will combats the desire, 
instead of complying with it, and refuses to issue that man- 
date, or in other words, to put forth that volition, which 
would instantly be followed up by an act and an accomplish- 
ment. And thus, however good the tree is for food, and 
however pleasant to the eyes, and however much to be 
desired, so as to make one taste and be satisfied — yet, if 
strong enough in all these determinations of prudence or 
principle, he may look on the fruit thereof and not eat. 

6. Dr. Brown and others would say, that there is nothing 
in this process, but the contest of opposite desires and the 
prevalence of the strongest one — and so identify will* and 

* Edwards, at the outset of his treatise on the Will, controverts Locke; 
but in such a way as reduces the difference between them very much to a 



380 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



desire with each other. But though a volition should be 
the sure result of a desire, that is no more reason why they 
should be identified, than why the prior term of any series 
in nature should be identified or confounded with any of its 
posterior terms, whether more or less remote. In the pro- 
cess that we have been describing, there were different 
desires in play } but there were not different volitions in 
play. There was one volition appended to the strongest 
desire : but the other desires, though felt by the mind, and 
therefore in actual being, had no volitions appended to them 
— proving that a desire may exist separately from the volition 
that is proper to it, and that therefore the two are separate 
and distinct from each other. The truth is, usiug Dr. 
Brown's own language, the mind is in a different state when 
framing a volition, from what it is when feeling a desire. 

question of nomenclature. On the one hand, the difference between a 
volition and a desire does not affect the main doctrine of Jonathan 
Edwards ; for, though volitions be distinct from desires, they may never- 
theless be the strict and unvarying" results of them. Even Edwards him- 
self seems to admit, that the mind has a different object in willing" from 
what it has in desiring — an act of our own being- the object of the one ; 
the thing* desired being- the object of the other. It serves to mark more 
strikingly the distinction between willing and desiring, when even an act 
of our own is the proper object of each of them. There may be a great 
desire to inflict a blow on an offender ; but this desire, restrained by con- 
siderations of prudence or principle, may not pass into a volition. Edwards 
would say that even here the volition does not run counter to the desire, 
but only marks the prevalence of the stronger desire over the weaker one. 
Now this is true ; but without at all obliterating the distinction for which 
we contend. The volition does run counter to the weaker desire, though 
under the impulse of the stronger ; and there are three distinct mental 
phenomena in this instance, the stronger desire, the weaker desire, and 
the volition, which ought no more to be confounded, than any movement 
with the motive forces that gave rise to it, or than the posterior with the 
prior term of any sequence. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 



381 



When feeling a desire, the mind has respect to the object 
desired — which object, then in view of the mind, is acting 
with its own peculiar influence on a mental susceptibility. 
When framing a volition the mind has respect, not properly 
to the object, but to the act by which it shall attain the 
object — aud so is said to be putting forth a mental power.* 
But whether this distinction be accurately expressed or not, 
certain it is, the mind is differently conditioned, when in 
but a state of simple desire — from what it is when in the 
act of conceiving a volition. It is engaged with different 
things, and looking different ways — in the one case to the 
antecedent object which has excited the desire, in the other 
case to the posterior act on which the will has determined 
for the attainment of the object. The palsied man who 
cannot stretch forth his hand to the apple that is placed in 
the distance before him, may, nevertheless, long after it ; 
and in him we perceive desire singly — for he is restrained 
by very helplessness from putting forth a volition, the 
proper object of which is some action of our own, and that 
we know to be in our own power. We accept with great 
pleasure of that simplification by Dr. Brown, in virtue of 
which we regard the mind, not as a congeries of different 
faculties, but as, itself one and indivisible, having the capa- 
city of passing into different states ; and without conceiving 
any distinction of faculties, we only affirm that it is in a 
different state when it wills, from that in which it is when 
it simply desires. t Notwithstanding the high authority 

* See Art. 1 of this Chapter. 

t Hume says very well of desire, that — " it arises from g-ood considered 
simply, and aversion from evil. The will again exerts itself, when either 
the presence of the g-ood or absence of the evil may be attained by any 
action of the mind or body." This is the definition of Hume, and it is a 
very g-ood one. And it tallies with the sensible remark of Dr. Reid, that 



382 



COOTECTIOtf BETWEEN THE 



both of Dr. Brown and Mr. Mill, we think that in con- 
founding these two, they have fallen into an erroneous 
simplification ; and we abide by the distinction of Dugald 
Stewart and the older writers upon this subject. 

7. But the point of deepest interest is that step of the 
process, at which the character of right or wrong comes to 

the object of every volition is some action of our own. And upon this he 
founds some very clear illustrations of the difference that there is between 
a desire and a volition. " A man desires that his children may be happy,, 
and that they may behave well. Their being happy is no action at all j 
and their behaving- well is not his action but theirs." " A man athirst 
has a strong* desire to drink ; but for some particular reason he determines 
not to gratify his desire." Here the man has the desire but not the will. 
In other cases he may have the will but not the desire. " A man for 
health may take a nauseous drug, for which he has no desire, but a great 
aversion." Desire, therefore, is not will ; but only one of the incitements 
that often leads to it- — though it may at all times be, and actually some- 
times is withstood. It is, however, because desire is so often accompanied 
by will, that we are apt to overlook the distinction between them. 

I may here observe, that to frame a volition is sometimes expressed 
more shortly by the phrase, to will. I will to put forth my hand, is 
different from, I desire to put it forth. There may be reasons why I 
should restrain the desire — so that though I desire it, I may not will it. 
For this application of the verb to will, we have the authority of the best 
English writers. " Whoever" says Dr. South, " wills the doing of a 
thing, if the doing of it be in his power, he will certainly do it; and who- 
ever does not do the thing which he has in his power to do, does not 
properly will it." And Locke says, " The man that sits still is said to be 
at liberty, because he can walk if he wills it." Dr. South makes a happy 
discrimination, which serves to throw light upon the precise nature of a 
volition as opposed to other things that may or may not lead to a volition 
— when he says, that " there is as much difference between the approbation 
of the judgment and the actual volitions of the will, as between a man's 
viewing a desirable thing, and reaching after it with his hand." He fur- 
ther says of a wish which is nought but a longing desire, that — " a wish 
is properly the desire of a man who is sitting or lying still ; but an act of 
the will is a man of business vigorously going about his work." 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 



383 



be applicable. It is not at that point, when the appetites 
or affections of our nature solicit from the will a particular 
movement ; neither is it at that point, when either a rational 
self-love or a sense of duty remonstrates against it. It is 
not at that point when the consent of the will is pleaded for, 
on the one side or other — but, all-important to be borne in 
mind, it is at that point when the consent is given. When 
we characterise a court at law for some one of its deeds— it 
is not upon the urgency of the argument on one side of the 
question, or of the reply upon the other, that we found our 
estimate ; but wholly upon the decision of the Jbench, which 
decision is carried into effect by a certain order given out to 
the officers who execute it. And so, in characterising an 
individual for some one of his doings, we found our estimate, 
not upon the desires of appetite that may have instigated 
him on the one hand, or upon the dictates of conscience 
that may have withstood these upon the other — not upon 
the elements that conflicted in the struggle, but on the 
determination that put an end to it — even that deter- 
mination of the will, which is carried into effect by those 
volitions, on the issuing of which, the hands, and the feet, 
and the other instruments of action, are put into instant 
subserviency. 

8. To prove how essentially linked together the morality 
of any act is with its wilfulness, it is of no consequence, 
whether the volition that gave rise to the act, be the one 
which preceded it immediately as its proximate cause, or be 
a remote and anterior volition — in which latter case, it is- 
termed a purpose, conceived at some period which may have 
long gone by, but which was kept unalterable till the 
opportunity for its execution came round.* There may be 

* It is true that if the desire were to cease for the object to be attained 
by the proposed act, the purpose would cease along- with it, but it were 



384 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



an interval of time, between that resolution of the will which 
is effective, and that performance by which it is carried into 
effect. One may resolve to-day, with full consent and pur- 
pose of the will, on some criminal enterprise for to-morrow. 
It is to-day that he has become the criminal, and has 
incurred a guilt to which even the performance of the morrow 
may bring no addition and no enhancement. The perfor- 
mance of to-morrow does not constitute the guilt, but only 
indicates it. It may prove what before the execution of the 
will was still an uncertainty. It may prove the strength of 
that determination which has been already taken — how it 
can stand its ground through all the hours which intervene 
between the desire and its fulfilment ; how meanwhile the 
visitations of reflection and remorse have been kept at a 
distance, or all been disregarded ; how with relentless 
depravity, the purpose has been adhered to, and the remon- 
strances of conscience or perhaps the entreaties of virtuous 
friendship have all been set at nought ; how, with a hardi- 
hood that could brave alike the disgrace and the condemnation 
which attach to moral worthlessness, he could proceed with 
unfaltering step from the reprobate design to its full and 
final accomplishment — nor suffer all the suggestions of his 
leisure and solitude, however affecting the thought of that 
innocence which he is now on the eve of forfeiting, or a 
tenderness for those relatives who are to be deeply wounded 
by the tidings of his fall, or the authority of a father's 
parting advice, or the remembrance of a mother's prayers, to 
stay his hand. 

confounding- the things which in reality are distinct from each other, to 
represent on this account the desire and the purpose as synonymous. The 
one respects the object that is wished for ; the other respects the action by 
which the object is to be attained. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 385 

9. That an action then be the rightful object either of 
moral censure or approval, it must have had the consent of 
the will to go along with it. It must be the fruit of a 
volition — else it is utterly beyond the scope, either of praise 
for its virtuousness or of blame for its criminality. If an 
action be involuntary, it is as unfit a subject for any moral 
reckoning, as are the pulsations of the wrist. Something 
ludicrous might occur, which all of a sudden sets one 
irresistibly on the action of laughing ; or a tale of distress 
might be told, which, whether he wills or not, forces from 
him the tears of sympathy, and sets him as irresistibly on 
the action of weeping ; or, on the appearance of a ferocious 
animal, he might struggle with all his power for a serene 
and manly firmness, yet struggle in vain against the action 
of trembling ; or if instead of a formidable a loathsome 
animal was presented to his notice, he might no more help 
the action of a violent recoil, perhaps antipathy, against it, 
than he can help any of the organic necessities of that 
constitution which has been given to him ; or even upon the 
observation of what is disgusting in the habit or countenance 
of a fellow-man, he may be overpowered into a sudden and 
sensitive aversion ; and lastly, should some gross and griev- 
ous transgression against the decencies of civilised life be 
practised before him, he might no more be able to stop that 
rush of blood to the complexion which marks the inward 
workings of an outraged and offended delicacy, than he is 
able to alter or suspend the law of its circulation. In 
each of these cases the action is involuntary ; and precisely 
because it is so, the epithet neither of morally good nor of 
morally evil can be applied to it. And so of every action 
that comes thus to speak of its own accord ; and not at the 
will or bidding of the agent. It may be painful to himself. 
It may also be painful to others. But if it have not had 

2 6 



386 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



the consent of his will, even that consent without which no 
action that is done can be called voluntary, it is his misfor- 
tune, and not his choice ; and though not indifferent in 
regard to its consequences on the happiness of man, yet, 
merely because disjoined from the will, it in point of moral 
estimation is an act of the purest indifference. 

1 0. How then, it may be asked, can any moral character be 
affixed to an emotion, which seems to be an organic or patho- 
logical phenomenon, wherewith the will may have little, 
perhaps nothing to do ? Nothing, we have affirmed, is either 
virtuous or vicious, unless the voluntary in some way inter- 
mingles with it ; and how then shall we vindicate the moral 
rank which is commonly assigned to the mere susceptibilities 
of our nature? We regard compassion as a virtuous sensi- 
bility ; and we regard malignity, or licentiousness, or envy, 
as so many depraved affections ; and yet, on our principle, 
they are virtuous or vicious only in so far as they are wilful. 
It is clearly at the bidding of his will that a man acts with 
his hand, and therefore we are at no loss to hold him respon- 
sible for his doings ; but we must learn how it is at the 
bidding of his will that he feels with his heart, ere we can 
hold him responsible for his desires. If apart from the will, 
there be neither moral worth nor moral worthlessness — if it 
be implied in the very notion of desert that the will has had 
some concern in that which we thus characterised — if neither 
actions nor affections are, without volitions, susceptible of 
any moral reckoning— it may require some consideration to 
perceive how far the element of moral worth is at all impli- 
cated in an emotion. If the emotions of sympathy be as much 
the result of an organic framework as the emotions of taste, 
and if this be true of all the emotions — it remains to be seen, 
why either praise or censure should be awarded to any of 
them. "Whether an emotion of taste arises within me at the 



INTELLECT A>~D THE WILL. 



387 



sight of beauty, or an emotion of pity at the sight of distress 
— the mind may have been as passive, or there may have been 
as m iich of the strictly pathological in the one emotion as in 
the other. 

11. Xow it may be very true that the will has as little to 
do with that pathological law, by which the sight of distress 
awakens in my bosom an emotion of pity, as with that other 
pathological law by which the sight of a red object impresses 
on my retina the sensation peculiar to that colour. Yet the 
will though not the proximate, may have been the remote 
and so the real cause, both of the emotion and sensation 
notwithstanding. It may have been at the bidding of my 
will, that, instead of hiding myself from my own flesh. I 
visited a scene of wretchedness, and entered within the 
confines, as it were, of that pathological influence, in virtue 
of which after that the spectacle of suffering was seen the 
compassion was unavoidable. And it is also at the bidding 
of my will, that I place myself within view of an object of 
sense ; that I direct my eye towards it and keep it open to 
that sensation, which after the circumstances that I have 
voluntarily realized, is equally unavoidable. I might have 
escaped from the emotion, had I so willed, by keeping aloof 
from the spectacle which awakened it. And I might escape 
from the sensation, if I so will, by shutting my eyes, or 
turning them away from the object which is its cause ; or, 
in other words, by the command which I have over the 
looking faculty that belongs to me. And perhaps the mind 
has a looking faculty as well as the body, in virtue of which, 
as by the one, objects are either removed from or made 
present to the sight, so by the other, objects may be either 
removed from or made present to the thoughts. Could we 
ascertain the existence and operations of such a faculty, this 
would explain how it is, that the emotions are subordinated 



388 



COmECTIOJS" BETWEEN THE 



not immediately but mediately to the will — that the mind 
by the direction of its looking faculty towards the counterpart 
objects, could, on the one hand, will these emotions into 
being ; or by the direction of it away from these objects, 
could, on the other hand, will them again into extinction. 
Such we hold to be the faculty of attention, It forms the 
great link between the intellectual and moral departments 
of our nature ; or between the percipient and what has 
already been named the pathematic department. It is the 
eontrol which the will has over this faculty that makes man 
responsible for the objects which he chooses to entertain, 
and so responsible for the emotions which pathologically 
result from them, 

12. If it be by a voluntary act that he comes to see certain 
objects, then, whatever the emotions are which are awakened 
by these objects, he may be said to have willed them into 
being. In like manner, if it be by a voluntary act that ho 
comes to think of certain objects, then may it also be said 
that he wills all the emotions which follow in their train. 
It is admitted on all hands, that, by the power which the 
will has over the muscles of the human frame, it can either 
summon into presence or bid away certain objects of sight. 
And, notwithstanding the effect which the expositions of 
certain metaphysical reasoners have had in obscuring the 
process, it is also admitted, almost universally, that, by the 
power which the will has over the thinking processes, it can 
either summon into presence or bid away certain objects of 
thought. The faculty of attention we regard as the great 
instrument for the achievement of this — the ligament which 
binds the one department of our constitution to the other — 
the messenger, to whose wakefulness and activity we owe all 
those influences, which pass and repass in constant succession 
between our moral and intellectual nature. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 



8S9 



13. Dr. Reid, in his book on the active powers, has a 
most important chapter on those operations of the mind that 
are called voluntary. Among these, he gives a foremost place 
to attention — where, instead however of any profound or 
careful analysis, he presents us with a number of very sensible 
remarks ; and from the undoubted part which the will has 
in the guidance and exercise of this faculty, he comes to the 
sound conclusion, that a great part of wisdom and virtue 
consists in giving the proper direction to it. 

14. Dugald Stewart ranks attention among the intellec- 
tual faculties ; and seems to regard it as an original power, 
which had very much escaped the notice of former observers* 
But Dr. Brown we hold to have been far the most successful 
in his expositions of this faculty ; and by which he makes it 
evident, that it is not more distinct from the mental per- 
ception of any object of thought, than the faculty of looking 
to any object of sight, is distinct from the faculty of seeing it. 

15. In his chapter on the external affections combined 
with desire, he institutes a beautiful analysis ; in the conduct 
of which, he has thrown the magic tints of poetry over a 
process of very abstract but conclusive reasoning. AVe fear, 
that in this age of superficial readers, the public are far from 
being adequately aware of that wondrous combination of 
talent which this singularly gifted individual realized in his 
own person ; and with what facility, yet elegance, he could 
intersperse the graces of fancy among the demonstrations of 
a most profound and original metaphysics. The passage to 
which we now refer, is perhaps the finest exemplification of 
this in all his volumes : and though we can hardly hope that 
the majority, even of the well-educated, will ever be tempted 
to embark on his adventurous speculations — yet many, we 
doubt not, have been led by the fascination of his minor 
accomplishments, to brave the depths and the difficulties of 



390 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



that masterly course which he has given to the world. For 
among the steeps and the arduous elevations of that high 
walk which he has taken, he kindly provides the reader with 
many a resting place— some enchanted spot, over which the 
hand of taste hath thrown her choicest decorations ; or 
where, after the fatigues and the triumphs of successful 
intellect, the traveller may, from the eminence that he has 
won, look abroad on some sweet or noble perspective, which 
the great master, whose footsteps he follows, hath thrown 
open to his gaze. It is thus that there is a constant relief 
and refreshment afforded along that ascending way, which 
but for this would be most severely intellectual ; and if 
never was philosophy more abstruse, yet never was it sea- 
soned so exquisitely, or spread over a page so rich in all 
those attic delicacies of the imagination and the style which 
could make the study of it attractive. 

16. There is a philosophy not more solid or more sublime 
of achievement than his, but of sterner frame — that would 
spurn " the fairy dreams of sacred fountains and Elysian 
groves and vales of bliss." For these he ever had most 
benignant toleration, and himself sported among the creations 
of poetic genius. We are aware of nought more fascinating 
than the kindness and complacency wherewith philosophy, 
in some of the finer spirits of our race, can make her grace- 
ful descent into a humbler but lovelier region than her own 
— when "the intellectual power bends from his awful throne 
a willing ear and smiles." 

17. " If," says Dr. Brown, " Nature has given us the 
power of seeing many objects at once, she has given us also 
the faculty of looking but to one — that is to say, of directing 
our eyes on one only of the multitude ;" and again, " There 
are some objects which are more striking than others, and 
which of themselves almost call us to look at them. They 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 



391 



are the predominant objects, around which others seem to 
arrange themselves.' ' 

18. The difference between seeing a thing and looking 
at it, is tantamount to the difference which there is between 
the mere presence of a thought in one's mind and the mind's 
attention to that which is the object of thought. Xow the 
look, according to Dr. Brown's analysis, is made up of the 
simple external affection of sight, and a desire to know more 
about some one of the things which we do see. "We think 
it the natural consequence of the error into which he has 
fallen, of confounding the desire with the will, that he has 
failed in giving a complete or continuous enough description 
of the process of attention— for, without any violence to the 
order of his own very peculiar contemplations, he might 
have gone on to say, as the effect of this mixed perception and 
desire on the part of the observer, that he willed to look to 
the object in question; and he might have spoken of the 
volition which fastened his eye and his attention upon it. 
Both he and Mr. Mill seem averse to the intervention of 
the will in this exercise at all — the one finding room only 
for desire ; and the other for his processes of association, 
ascribing attention to the mere occurrence of interesting 
sensations or ideas in the train. Xow if this question is to 
be decided by observation at all, or by consciousness, which 
is the faculty of internal observation, the mental states of 
desiring and willing seem just as distinguishable as any other 
mental state whatever. At the time when the mind desires, 
it bears a respect towards the desirable object ; at the time 
when it wills, it bears a respect towards something different 
from this, to that act of its own which is put forth for the 
purpose of attainiug the object. The desire that is felt 
towards the object is specifically a distinct thing from the 
volition which prompts or precedes the action. The desire 



392 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



may have caused the volition ; but this is no reason why it 
should be confounded with the volition. And in like 
manner, a feeling of interest in an idea, or rather in the 
object of an idea, is quite distinguishable from that volition 
which respects a something different from this object— -which 
respects an act or exercise of the mind, even the attention 
that we shall give to it. The interest that is felt in any 
object of thought may have been the cause, and the sole 
cause of the attention which we give to it. But the neces- 
sary connection which obtains between the parts of a process, 
is no reason why we should overlook any part, or confound 
the different parts with each other. In this instance, Mr. 
Hume seems to have observed more accurately than either 
of the philosophers whom we have now named, when he 
discriminates between the will and the desire, and tells us 
of the former, that it exerts itself when the thing desired is 
to be attained by any action of the mind or body. A volition 
is as distinctly felt in the mental as in the bodily process — 
although it be in the latter only that the will first acts on 
some one of the muscles as its instrument, and issues in a 
visible movement as its required service. The power of the 
will over an intellectual process is marked by the difference, 
the palpable difference which there is between a regulated 
train of thought and a passive reverie. And there is nothing 
in the intervention of the will to contravene, or even to 
modify the general laws of association. JN'either does the 
wish to recover a particular idea, involve in it the incongruity 
of that idea being both present with and absent from the 
mind at the same time. "We may not have an idea that is 
absent, and yet have the knowledge of its being related to 
some other idea that is present ; and we therefore attend to 
this latter idea and dwell upon it, for the purpose, as is well 
expressed by Mr. Mill, of " giving it the opportunity of 



INTELLECT A^D THE "WILL. 



393 



exciting all the ideas with which it is associated ; for by not 
attending to it, we. deprive it more or less of that opportu- 
nity. " It is, therefore, as he elsewhere expresses it, that 
we detain certain ideas and suffer others to pass. But there 
is nothing inconsistent with the laws of phenomena of asso- 
ciation, in our saying of this act of detention that it is a 
voluntary act — that we detain certain ideas, because we will 
to detain them.* 

19. It is this which imparts virtuousness to emotion, even 
though there be nothing virtuous which is not voluntary. 
It is true that once the idea of an object is in the mind, its 
counterpart emotion may, by an organic or pathological law, 
have come unbidden into the heart. The emotion may have 
come unbidden ; but the idea may not have come unbidden. 
By an act of the will, it may, in the way now explained, 
have been summoned at the first into the mind's presence ; 
and at all events it is by a continuous act of the will that it 
is detained and dwelt upon. The will is not in contact with 
the emotion, but it is in contact with that idea of the object 
which awakens the emotion — and therefore, although not in 
contact with the emotion, it may be vested with an effectual 
control over it. It cannot bid compassion into the bosom, 
apart from the object which awakens it ; but it can bid a 
personal entry into the house of mourning, and then the 
compassion will flow apace ; or it can bid a mental concep- 
tion of the bereaved and afflicted family there, and then the 
sensibility will equally arise, whether a suffering be seen or 
a suffering be thought of. In like manner, it cannot bid 
into the breast the naked and unaccompanied feeling of 
gratitude ; but it can call to recollection, and keep in recol- 
lection the kindness which prompts it — and the emotion 
follows in faithful attendance on its counterpart object. It 
* See the Chapter on the Will, in Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind. 



394 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



is thus that we can will the right emotions into being, not 
immediately but mediately — as the love of Grod, by thinking 
on God — a sentiment of friendship, by dwelling in contem- 
plation on the congenial qualities of our friend — the admi- 
ration of moral excellence, by means of a serious and stead- 
fast attention to it. It is thus too that we bid away the 
wrong emotions, not separately and in disjunction from their 
objects, for the pathological law which unites objects with 
emotions we cannot break asunder. But we rid our heart 
of the emotions, by ridding our mind of their exciting and 
originating thoughts ; of anger, for example, by forgetting 
the injury ; or of a licentious instigation, by dismissing from 
our fancy the licentious image, or turning our sight and our 
eyes from viewing vanity. It is this command of the will 
over the attention, which, transmuting the intellectual into 
the moral, makes duties of heedfulness and consideration— 
and duties too of prime importance, because of the place 
which attention occupies in the mental system, as the great 
ligament between the percipient and the pathematic parts of 
our nature. It is by its means that the will is made to 
touch at least the springs of emotion — if it do not touch the 
emotions themselves. The will tells on the sensibilities, 
through an intermediate machinery which has been placed 
at its disposal ; and thus it is, that the culture or regula- 
tion of the heart is mainly dependent on the regulation of 
the thoughts. 

20. We may thus be enabled to explain, and perhaps 
more clearly than before, the force and inveteracy of habit ; 
and that, not by the power of emotions to suggest emotions, 
but purely by the power of thoughts to suggest thoughts. 
In this process, the emotions will of course intermingle with 
their own counterpart thoughts ; and both ideas and feelings 
will succeed each other in their customary trains all the 



INTELLECT A>~D THE WILL. 



395 



more surely, the oftener it lias been suffered to pass un- 
broken by any intervention of the will, any remonstrance 
from the voice of conscience. It is in this way that the 
wretched voluptuary becomes every year the more helpless 
victim of his own depraved inclinations — because more and 
more lorded over by those foul imaginations, which are 
lighted up to him from almost every object he sees or thinks 
of ; and which now he scarcely has the power, because he 
never had the honest or sustained will, to bid away. That 
may truly be called a moral chastisement under which he 
suffers. The more he has sinned, the more helpless is 
the necessity under which he lies of sinning — a bondage 
strengthened by every act of indulgence, till he may become 
the irrecoverable slave of those passions which war against 
the principles of a better and higher nature. And he is 
domineered over by passions, because domineered over by 
thoughts ; and it is only by the force or mastery of counter- 
acting thoughts, that the spell is broken — or, in other words, 
it is through an intellectual medium, that the moral dis- 
temper is cleared away. If he be rescued from his delusions 
to sobriety and virtue, ideas will be the stepping-stones of 
his returning path — the sirens that will recall him to him- 
self, by chasing away the fascinations wherewith he is en- 
compassed. Could the percipient part of his nature be set 
right, the pathological part of it would become whole. He 
would yet behave himself aright, did he only bethink him- 
self aright ; and noble recoveries have been effected, even 
from most deep and hopeless infatuation, simply by the 
power of thoughts — when made to dwell on the distress of 
friends, the poverty and despair of children, the ruin of 
health as well as fortune, the displeasure of an angry God, the 
horrors of an unprovided death-bed or an undone eternity.* 
* A strict confinement to our assigned object has hitherto prevented any 



396 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



21. Actions are voluntary in themselves, in that the mind 
can will them directly into being. Emotions, though not 
voluntary in themselves, are so far voluntary in their proxi- 
mate or immediate causes — in that the mind, to a certain 
extent, and by the control which it has over the faculty of 
attention, can will those ideas into its presence by which 
the emotions are awakened. It is well that man is thus 
vested, not only with a control over his actions ; but also 
in a great degree with a control over his emotions, these 
powerful impellents to action — and it required an exquisite 
fitting of the intellectual to the moral in man's mental 
system, ere such a mechanism could be framed. But we 
not only behold in the relation between the will and the 
emotions, a skilful adaptation in the parts of the human con- 
stitution to each other ; we also behold a general and mani- 
fold adaptation to this peculiarity in the various objects of 
external nature. Man can, by means of these objects, 
either kindle the right emotions in his bosom, or make his 
escape from those emotions that trouble and annoy him. By 
an entry into an abode of destitution, he can effectually 
soften his heart ; by an entry into an abode of still deeper 
suffering, where are to be found the dead or the dying, he can 
effectually solemnize it. But a still more palpable use of that 

allusion to Christianity, from which, indeed, we purposely abstain, till 
we approach more nearly towards the conclusion of this essay. Still we 
may here remark how strikingly accordant the philosophy of our nature 
is with the lessons of the Gospel in regard to the reciprocal acting" of its 
moral and intellectual parts on each other — and that not merely in what 
Scripture enjoins on the management of temptations, but in its frequent 
affirmation, as a general and reigning principle, of the power which its 
objective doctrines have in transforming the subjective mind which re- 
ceives them — exemplified in such phrases as " being sanctified by the 
truth," and " keeping our hearts in the love of God, by building ourselves 
up on our most holy faith." 



INTELLECT A^D THE WILL. 



397 



indefinite number of objects wherewith the world is so filled 
and variegated, is, that by creating an incessant diversion of 
the thoughts from such objects as are of malignant influ- 
ence, it may rid the inner man of the grief, or the anger, 
or the wayward licentiousness of feeling, which might other- 
wise have lorded over him ; and to the urgent calls of busi- 
ness or duty or amusement, do we owe such lengthened 
periods of exemption both from the emotions that pain, and 
from the emotions that would vitiate and deprave us. 

22. But there is another application, of at least as high 
importance, to which this peculiarity of our mental struc- 
ture is subservient. By the command which the will has 
over the attention, we become responsible, not only for our 
states of emotion, but also in a great degree for our intel- 
lectual states. The imagination that there is neither moral 
worth nor moral delinquency in the state of a man's belief, 
proceeds on the voluntary having had no share in the process 
which leads to it. Now, through the intermedium of the 
very same faculty, the faculty of attention, the will stands 
related to the ultimate convictions of the understanding, pre- 
cisely as it stands related to the ultimate emotions of the 
heart. It is true that as the object in view of the mind is, 
so the emotion is. And it is as true that as the evidence in 
view of the mind is, so the belief is. In neither case has 
the will to do with the concluding sequence ; but in both 
cases it has equally to do with the sequences that went be- 
fore it. There may be a pathological necessity beyond our 
controul, in that final step of the succession, which connects 
the object that is perceived with its counterpart emotion, or 
the evidence that is perceived with its counterpart belief. 
But in like manner as it is by the attention, which we might 
or might not have exercised, that the object is perceived by 
us, so it is by the attention, which we might or might not 



398 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE 



have exercised, that the evidence is perceived by us. It is 
thus that on innumerable questions, and those of vital im- 
portance, both to the present well-being and the future 
prospects of humanity, the moral may have had causal ante- 
cedency over the intellectual ; and the state of a man's creed 
may depend on the prior state of his character. We have 
already seen how a present compassion may have been the 
result of a previous choice ; and so may a present conviction 
be the result of a previous choice — being in proportion, not 
to the evidence possessed by the subject, but to the evidence 
attended to, and perceived in consequence of that attention. 
The designations of virtuous and vicious are only applica- 
ble to that which is voluntary ; and it is precisely, because, 
through the faculty of attention, the voluntary has had so 
much to do, if not immediately with the belief, at least with 
the investigations which lead to it — that man may be reck- 
oned with for the judgments of his understanding, as well 
as for the emotions of his heart or the actions of his history. 

23. That man is not rightfully the subject of any moral 
reckoning for his belief, would appear, then, to be as mon- 
strous a heresy in science as it is in theology, as philosophi- 
cally unsound as it is religiously unsound ; and deriving all 
its plausibility from the imagination, that the belief is in no 
way dependent upon the will. It is not morally incumbent 
upon man to see an object which is placed beyond the sphere 
of his vision— nor can either a rightful condemnation or a 
rightful vengeance be laid upon him, because he has not 
perceived it. It must lie within that sphere, else he is no 
more responsible for not having reached it with his eye, than 
for not having stretched forth his hand to any of the dis- 
tant bodies in the firmament. It must be within range of 
his seeing ; and then the only question which needs to be 
resolved is, what the will has to do with the seeing of it. 



INTELLECT AXD THE "WILL. 



399 



Now to see is not properly an act of the will, but to look 
is altogether so ; and it is the dependence of his looking 
faculty on the will, which makes man responsible for what 
he sees or what he does not see, in reference to all those 
objects of sight, that are placed within the territory of sen- 
sible yision. And if there be but a looking faculty in the 
mind, man may be alike responsible for what he belieyes or 
what he does not belieye, in reference not to sensible objects 
alone, but to those truths which are placed within the terri- 
tory of his intellectual or mental vision. jSTow attention is 
eyen such a faculty. Man can turn and transfer it at plea- 
sure from one to another topic of contemplation. He can take 
cognizance of any yisible thing, in virtue of the power which 
he has oyer the eye of his body — a power, not to alter the 
laws of yision, but to bring the organ of yision within the 
operation of these laws. And he can take cognizance of 
any announced truth, in virtue of the power he has over 
his attention, which is his mental eye — a power, not to alter 
the laws of evidence, but to bring the organ of the intellect 
within their operation. Attention is the looking organ of the 
mind — the link of communication between man's moral and 
man's intellectual nature — the messenger, as it were, by 
which the interchange between these two departments is 
carried on — a messenger too at the bidding of the will, 
which saith to it at one time go and it goeth, at another 
come and it cometh, and at a third do this and it doeth it. 
It is thus that man becomes directly responsible for the 
conclusions of bis understanding — for these conclusions 
depend altogether, not on the evidence which exists, but on 
that portion of the evidence which is attended to. He is 
not to be reckoned with, either for the lack or the suffi- 
ciency of the existent evidence ; but he might most justly be 
reckoned with, for the lack or the sufficiency of his atten- 



400 



CO^IS'ECTIOIS' BETWEEN THE 



tion. It is not for him to create the light of day ; but it is 
for him both to open and to present his eye to all its mani- 
festations. Neither is it for him to fetch down to earth the 
light of the upper sanctuary. But if it be indeed true that 
that light hath come into the world ; then it is for him to 
guide the eye of his understanding towards it. There is a 
voluntary part for him to perform ; and thenceforward the 
question is involved with most obvious moralities. The 
thing is now submitted to his choice. He may have the 
light, if he only love the light ; and if he do not, then are his 
love of darkness and the evil of his doings the unquestion- 
able grounds of his most clear and emphatic condemna- 
tion. 

24. And this principle is of force, throughout all the 
stages in the process of the inquiry — from the very first 
glance of that which is the subject of it, to the full and 
finished conviction in which the inquiry terminates. At 
the commencement of the process, we may see nothing but 
the likelihoods of a subject — not the conclusive proofs, but 
only as yet the dim and dawning probabilities of the ques- 
tion — nothing which is imperative upon our belief, and yet 
every thing which is imperative upon our attention. There 
may be as great a moral perversity in resisting that call, 
which the mere semblance of truth makes upon our further 
attention — as in resisting that call, which the broad and 
perfect manifestation of it makes upon our conviction. In 
the practice of Scottish law, there is a distinction made 
between the precognition and the proof— carried into effect 
in England by the respective functions of the grand and 
petty jury ; it being the office of the former to find a true 
bill, or to decide whether the matter in question should be 
brought to a further trial ; and it being the office of the 
latter to make that trial, and to pronounce the final verdict 



INTELLECT A2s"D THE WILL. 



401 



thereupon. Xow what we affirm is, that there might be to 
the full as grievous a delinquency in the former act of 
judgment as in the latter; in the denial of a further hear- 
ing to the cause after the strong probabilities which have 
transpired at the one stage, as in the denial of a fair ver- 
dict after the strong and satisfactory proofs which have 
transpired at the other. All the equities of rectitude may 
be as much traversed or violated, at the initial or progres- 
sive steps of such an inquiry, as by the ultimate judgment 
which forms the termination of it. To resist a good and 
valid precognition, and so to refuse the trial, is a moral 
unfairness of the very same kind, with that resistance of a 
good and valid proof which leads to the utterance of a false 
verdict. He were an iniquitous judge, who should inter- 
nally stifle the impression of those verities, which now 
brighten forth upon him at the close of his investigation. 
But he also were an iniquitous judge, who should stifle the 
impression of those verisimilitudes, that even but obscurely 
and languidly beamed upon him at the outset. 

25. 2sow, in all the processes of the human intellect, 
there is a similar gradation silently yet substantially car- 
ried forward. There is first an aspect of probability, which 
constitutes no claim upon our immediate belief, but which 
at least constitutes a most rightful claim upon our attention, 
a faculty, as we before said, at the bidding of our will, and 
for the exercise of which we are therefore responsible — 
seeing that whenever there is a rightful claim upon our 
attention, and the attention is not given, it is wrongously 
withheld. But we know that the effect of this faculty, is 
to brighten every object of contemplation to which it is 
directed, gradually to involve into greater clearness all its 
lineaments, and lastly to impress the right conviction upon 
the understanding. In other words, the man, on such an 

2 D 



402 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



occasion as this, is intellectually right, but just because he 
is morally right. He becomes sound in faith ; but only in 
virtue of having become sound in principle. The true be- 
lief in which he ultimately lands, is not all at once forced 
upon him, by the credentials, wherewith it was associated ; 
but he had the patience and the candour to wait the un- 
rolling of these credentials ; or rather he helped to unrol 
them with his own hand. He fastened his regards upon 
some proposition which involved in it the interests or the 
obligations of humanity ; because there sat upon it, even 
at the first, a certain creditable aspect, which, had he had 
the hardihood to withstand or to turn from, it would have 
made him chargeable, not with a mental alone, but with a 
moral perversity — not with the error that springs from a 
mistaken judgment, but with the guilt that springs from the 
violation of an incumbent duty. Many are the truths 
which do not carry an instant and overpowering evidence 
along with them ; and which therefore, at their first an- 
nouncement, are not entitled to demand admittance for 
themselves as the articles of a creed. Nevertheless they 
may be entitled to a hearing ; and, by the refusal of that 
hearing, man incurs, not the misfortune of an involuntary 
blunder, but the turpitude of a voluntary crime. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

On the Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology. 

1. "We behold in the influence which the will has over the 
intellectual states, the same adaptations which we did in the 
influence of the will over the emotions. In the first place, 
it is well that the will should have a certain overruling power 



OF Is AT UK AL THEOLOGY. 



403 



over the conclusions of the understanding — seeing that, if 
emotions supply the great impellent forces, doctrines, or the 
truths which are believed, supply the great principles of 
action. And secondly, there is a striking adaptation, in 
this part of our constitution, to the things and the objects 
which be around us. For, although there be much of truth, 
having that sort of immediate and resistless evidence which 
forces itself upon our convictions whether we will or not — ■ 
there is also much, and that too practically the most momen- 
tous, of which we can only attain the conviction and the 
knowledge by a lengthened, often a laborious, process of 
inquiry. In like manner as of material objects, they may 
bes seen but imperfectly at the first ; and we become fully 
and minutely acquainted with their visible properties, only 
by a prolonged look, which is a sustained and voluntary act 
— so many are the objects of thought, both the reality and 
the nature of which are but dimly apprehended on the first 
suggestion of them ; and of which we can only be made 
firmly to believe and thoroughly to know by means of a 
prolonged attention, which is a sustained and voluntary act 
also. It is thus that the moral state determines the intel- 
lectual — for it is by the exercise of a strong and continuous 
will, upholding or perpetuating the attention, that what at 
the outset were the probabilities of a subject are at length 
brightened into its proofs, and the verisimilitudes of our 
regardful notice become the verities of our confirmed faith. 

2. Of all the subjects to which the attention of the human 
mind can be directed, this principle admits of pre-eminent 
application to the subject of theology — as involving in it 
both the present duties and the final destinies of our race. 
In no other track of inquiry are the moral and the intel- 
lectual more thoroughly blended, — as might be evinced by 
tracing the whole progress, from the first or incipient 



404 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



disposition of mind towards the theme, to the devotedness 
of its confirmed assurance. 

3. Going back then to the very earliest of our mental 
conceptions on this subject, we advert first to the distinction 
in point of real and logical import, between unbelief and 
disbelief. The former, we apprehend, to be the furthest 
amount of the atheistical verdict on the question of a God. 
The atheist does not labour to demonstrate that there is no 
God. But he labours to demonstrate that there is no 
adequate proof of there being one. He does not positively 
affirm the position, that God is not ; but he affirms the lack 
of evidence for the position, that God is. His verdict on 
the doctrine of a God is only that it is not proven. It is 
not that it is not disproven. He is but an Atheist. He is 
not an Antitheist. 

4. Now there is one consideration, which affords the 
inquirer a singularly clear and commanding position, at the 
outset of this great question. It is this. We cannot, 
without a glaring contravention to all the principles of the 
experimental philosophy, recede to a further distance from 
the doctrine of a God, than to the position of simple atheism. 
"We do not need to take our departure from any point further 
back than this, in the region of antitheism ; for that region 
cannot possibly be entered by us but by an act of tremen- 
dous presumption, which it were premature to denounce as 
impious, but which we have the authority of all modern 
science for denouncing as unphilosophical. To make this 
palpable, we have only to contrast the two intellectual 
states, not of theism and atheism, but of theism and anti- 
theism — along ^with the two processes, by which alone we 
can be logically and legitimately led to them. 

5. To be able to say then that there is a God, we may 
have only to look abroad on some definite territory, and 



OF STATUE All THEOLOGY. 



405 



point to the vestiges that are given of His power and His 
presence somewhere. To be able to say that there is no 
God, we must walk the whole expanse of infinity, and ascer- 
tain, by observation, that snch vestiges are to be found 
nowhere. Grant that no trace of Him can be discerned in 
that quarter of contemplation which our puny optics have 
explored — does it follow, that, throughout all immensity, a 
Being with the essence and sovereignty of a God is nowhere 
to be found ? Because through our loopholes of communi- 
cation with that small portion of external nature which is 
before us, we have not seen or ascertained a God — must we 
therefore conclude of every unknown and untrodden vastness 
in this illimitable universe, that no Divinity is there ? — Or 
because, through the brief successions of our little day, these 
heavens have not once broken silence, is it therefore for us 
to speak to all the periods of that eternity which is behind 
us ; and to say, that never hath a God come forth with the 
unequivocal tokens of His existence ? Ere we can say that 
there is a God— we must have seen, on that portion of 
Xature to which we have access, the print of His footsteps ; 
or have had direct intimation from himself ; or been satisfied 
by the authentic memorials of His converse with our species 
in other days. But ere we can say that there is no God — 
we must have roamed over all nature, and seen that no mark 
of a Divine footstep was there : and we must have gotten 
intimacy with every existent spirit in the universe, and 
learned from each that never did a revelation of the Deity 
visit him ; and we must have searched, not into the records 
of one solitary planet, but into the archives of all worlds, 
and thence gathered, that, throughout the wide realms of 
immensity, not one exhibition of a reigning and living God 
ever has been made. Atheism might plead a lack of evidence 
within its own field of observation. But antitheism pro- 



406 



THE DEFECTS A^D USES 



nounces both upon the things which are, and the things 
which are not within that field. It breaks forth and beyond 
all those limits that have been prescribed to man's excursive 
spirit, by the sound philosophy of experience ; and by a 
presumption the most tremendous, even the usurpation of 
all space and of all time, it affirms that there is no God. 
To make this out, we should need to travel abroad over the 
surrounding universe till we had exhausted it, and to search 
backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity ; to 
traverse in every direction the plains of infinitude, and sweep 
the outskirts of that space which is itself interminable ; and 
then bring back to this little world of ours, the report of a 
universal blank, wherein we had not met with one manifes- 
tation or one movement of a presiding God. Tor man not 
to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of 
our common nature. But to deny him, he must be a God 
hinself. He must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of 
the Godhead. # 

* This idea has been powerfully rendered by Foster in the following* 
passage extracted from one of his essays : — 

" The wonder turns on the great process by which a man could grow 
to the immense intelligence that can know there is no God. What ages 
and what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence 
involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless 
this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the 
universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations 
of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not 
absolutely know every agent in the universe, the one that he does not 
know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, 
and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not 
in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, 
the one which he wants may be that there is a God. If he cannot with 
certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may 
be a God. If he does not know everything that has been done in the 
immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



407 



6. It affords a firm outset to this investigation, that we 
cannot recede a greater way from the doctrine to be investi- 
gated, than to the simple point of. ignorance or unbelief. 
We cannot, without making inroad on the soundest prin- 
ciples of evidence, move one step back from this, to the 
region of disbelief. We can figure an inquirer taking up 
his position in midway atheism. But he cannot, without 
defiance to the whole principle and philosophy of evidence, 
make aggression thence on the side of antitheism. There is 
a clear intellectual principle, which forbids his proceeding 
in that direction ; and there is another principle equally 
clear, though not an intellectual but a moral one, which 
urges him, if not to move, at least to look in the opposite 
direction. We are not asking him, situated where he is, to 
believe in God. For the time being, we as little expect a 
friendly as we desire a hostile decision upon the question. 
Our only demand for the present is, that he shall entertain 
the question. And to enforce the demand, we think that an 
effective appeal might be made to his own moral nature. 
We suppose him still to be an atheist, but no more than an 
atheist— for, in all right Baconian logic, the very farthest 
remove from theism, at which he or any man can be placed 
by the lack of evidence for a God, is at the point of simple 
neutrality. We might well assume this point, as the utmost 
possible extreme of alienation from the doctrine of a Creator, 
to which the mind of a creature can in any circumstances 
be legitimately carried. AVe cannot move from it, in the 
direction towards antitheism, without violence to all that is 
just in philosophy ; and we might therefore commence with 
inquiring, whether, in this lowest state of information and 

God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another Deity 
by being- one himself, he cannot know that the Being- whose existence he 
rejects does not exist." 



408 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



proof upon the question, there can be any thing assigned 
which should lead us to move, or at least to look in the 
opposite direction. 

7. In the utter destitution, for the present, of any 
argument, or even semblance of argument, that a God is— 
there is, perhaps, a certain duteous movement which the 
mind ought to take, on the bare suggestion that a God may 
be. The certainty of an actual God binds over to certain 
distinct and most undoubted proprieties. But .so also may 
the imagination of a possible God — in which case, the very 
idea of a God, even in its most hypothetical form, might lay 
a responsibility, even upon atheists. 

8. To make this palpable, we might imagine a family 
suffering under extreme destitution, and translated all at 
once into sufficiency or affluence by an anonymous donation. 
Had the benefactor been known, the gratitude that were 
due to him becomes abundantly obvious ; and in the estima- 
tion of every conscience, nothing could exceed the turpitude 
of him who should regale himself on the bounties wherewith 
lie had been enriched, and yet pass unheedingly by the 
giver of them all. Yet does not a proportion of this very 
guilt rest upon him who knows not the hand that relieved 
him, yet cares not to inquire ? It does not exonerate him 
from the burden of all obligation, that he knows not the 
hand which sustains him. He incurs a guilt, if he do not 
want to know. It is enough to convict him of a great 
moral delinquency, if he have gladly seized upon the liberali- 
ties which were brought in secret to his door, yet seeks not 
after the quarter whence they have come — willing that the 
hand of the dispenser should remain for ever unknown, and 
not wanting any such disclosures as would lay a distinct 
claim or obligation upon himself. He altogether lives by 
the bounty of another ; yet would rather continue te live 



Or j^ATUBAL THEOLOGY. 



409 



without the burden of those sendees or acknowledgments 
that are due to him. His ignorance of the benefactor might 
alleviate the charge of ingratitude ; but it plainly awakens 
the charge again, if he choose to remain in ignorance, and 
would shun the information that might dispel it. In 
reference then to this still undiscovered patron of his family, 
it is possible for him to evince ingratitude ; to make full 
exhibition of a nature that is unmoved by kindness and 
withholds the moral responses which are due to it, that can 
riot with utmost selfishness and satisfaction upon the gifts, 
while in total indifference about the giver — an indifference 
which might be quite as clearly and characteristically shewn, 
by the man who seeks not after his unknown friend, as by 
the man who slights him after that he has found him. 

9. It may thus be made to appear, that there is an ethics 
connected with theology, which may come into play, anterior 
to the clear view of any of its objects. More especially, we 
do not need to be sure of God, ere we ought to have certain 
feelings, or at least certain aspirations towards him. For 
this purpose we do not need, fully and absolutely, to believe 
that God is* It is enough that our minds cannot fully and 
absolutely acquiesce in the position that God is not. To be 
fit subjects for our present argument, we do not need to 
have explored that territory of nature which is within our 
reach ; and thence gathered, in the traces of a designer's 
hand, the positive conclusion that there is a God. It is 
enough if we have not traversed, throughout all its directions 
and in all its extent, the sphere of immensity ; and if we 
have not scaled the mysterious altitudes of the eternity that 
is past ; nor, after having there searched for a divinity in 
vain, have come at length to the positive and the peremp- 
tory conclusion, that there is not a God. In a word, it is 
quite enough that man is barely a finite creature, who has 
not yet put forth his faculties on the question whether God 



410 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



is ; neither has yet so ranged over all space and all time, as 
definitely to have ascertained that God is not — but with 
whom, though in ignorance of all proofs, it still remains a 
possibility that God may be. 

10. Now to this condition there attaches a most clear and 
incumbent morality. It is to go in quest of that unseen 
benefactor, who, for aught I know, has ushered me into 
existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around rne. It 
is to probe the secret of my being and my birth ; and, if 
possible, to make discovery whether it was indeed the hand 
of a benefactor, that brought me forth from the cham- 
bers of nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in 
that glowing territory, which is lighted up with the hopes 
and the happiness of living men. It is thus that the very 
conception of a God throws a responsibility after it ; and 
that duty, solemn and imperative duty, stands associated 
with the thought of a possible Deity, as well as with the 
sight of a present Deity, standing in full manifestation be- 
fore us. Even anterior to all knowledge of God, or when 
that knowledge is in embryo, there is both a path of irre- 
ligion and a path of piety ; and that law which denounces 
the one, and gives to the other an approving testimony, 
may find in him w T ho is still in utter darkness about his 
origin and his end, a fit subject for the retributions which 
she deals in. He cannot be said to have borne disregard to 
the will of that God whom he has found. But his is the 
guilt of impiety, in that he has borne disregard to the 
knowledge of that God, whom he was bound by every tie of 
gratitude to seek after— a duty not founded on the proofs 
that may be exhibited for the being of a God, but a duty to 
which even the most slight and slender of presumption 
should give rise. And who can deny that, antecedent to all 
close and careful examination of the proofs, there are at 
least many presumptions in behalf of a God, to meet the 



OP ^TATUEAL THEOLOGY. 



411 



eye of every observer ? Is there any so hardy as to deny, 
that the curious workmanship of his frame may have had a 
designer and an architect, that the ten thousand independent 
circumstances which must be united ere he can have a mo- 
ment's ease, and the failure of any one of which would be 
agony, may not have met at random, but that there may 
be a skilful and unseen hand to have put them together into 
one wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases to uphold 
it ; that there may be a real and living artist whose fingers 
did frame the economy of actual things, and who hath so 
marvellously suited all that is around us to our senses and our 
powers of gratification ? "Without affirming aught that is 
positive, surely the air that we breathe, and the beautiful 
light in which we expatiate, these elements of sight and 
sound so exquisitely fitted to the organs of the human frame- 
work, may have been provided by one who did benevolently 
consult in them our special accommodation. The graces 
innumerable that lie widely spread over the face of our 
world, the glorious concave of heaven that is placed over us, 
the grateful variety of seasons that like Nature's shifting 
panorama ever brings new entertainment and delight to the 
eye of spectators — these may, for aught we know, be the 
emanations of a creative mind, that originated our family, 
and devised such a universe for their habitation. Regarding 
these, not as proofs, but in the humble light of presumptions 
for a God, they are truly enough to convict us of foulest 
ingratitude — if we go not forth in quest of a yet unknown, 
but at least possible or likely benefactor. They may not 
resolve the question of a God. But they bring the heaviest 
reproach on our listlessness to the question ; and shew that, 
anterior to our assured belief in his existence, there lies 
upon us a most imperious obligation to " stir ourselves up 
that we may lay hold of him." 



412 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



11. Such presumptions as these, if not so many demands 
on the belief of man, are at least so many demands upon 
his attention ; and then, for aught he knows, the presump- 
tions on which he ought to inquire may be more and more 
enhanced, till they brighten into proofs which ought to 
convince him. The prima-facie evidence for a God may not 
be enough to decide the question ; but it should at least 
decide man to entertain the question. To think upon how 
slight a variation either in man or in external nature, the 
whole difference between physical enjoyment and the most 
acute and most appalling of physical agony may turn ; to 
think how delicate the balance is, and yet how surely and 
steadfastly it is maintained, so as that the vast majority of 
creatures are not only upheld in comfort, but often may be 
seen disporting themselves in the redundance of gaiety ; to 
think of the pleasurable sensations wherewith every hour 
is enlivened, and how much the most frequent and familiar 
occasions of life are mixed up with happiness ; to think of 
the food, and the recreation, and the study, and the society, 
and the business, each having an appropriate relish of its 
own, so as in fact to season with enjoyment the great bulk 
of our existence in the world ; to think that, instead of 
living in the midst of grievous and incessant annoyance to 
all our faculties, we should have awoke upon a world that so 
harmonised with the various senses of men, and both gave 
forth such music to the ear, and to his eye such manifold 
loveliness ; to think of all these palpable and most precious 
adaptations, and yet to care not w r hether in this wide uni- 
verse there exists a being who has had any hand in them ; 
to riot and regale oneself to the uttermost in the midst of 
all this profusion, and yet to send not one wishful inquiry 
after that Benevolence which for aught we know may have 
laid it at our feet — this, however shaded from our view the 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



413 



object of the questiou may be, is, from its very commence- 
ment, a clear outrage against its etbical properties. If that 
veil of dim transparency, which hides the Deity from our 
immediate perceptions, were lifted up ; and we should then 
spurn from us the manifested God — this were direct and 
glaring impiety. But, anterior to the lifting of that veil, 
there may be impiety. It is impiety to be so immersed as 
we are in the busy objects and gratifications of life ; and yet 
to care not whether there be a great and a good spirit by 
whose kindness it is that life is upholden/ It needs not 
that this spirit should reveal himself in characters that force 
our attention to him, ere the guilt of our impiety has begun. 
But ours is the guilt of impiety, in not lifting our attention 
towards God, in not seeking after Him if haply we may find 
Him. 

12, Man is not to blame, if an atheist, because of the 
want of proof. But he is to blame, if an atheist, because he 
has shut his eyes. He is not to blame, that the evidence 
for a God has not been seen by him, if no such evidence 
there were within the field of his observation. But he is 
to blame, if the evidence has not been seen, because he 
turned away his attention from it. That the question of a 
God may lie unresolved in his mind, all he has to do is to 
refuse a hearing to the question. He may abide without 
the conviction of a God, if he so choose. But this his choice 
is matter of condemnation. To resist God after that He is 
known, is criminality towards Him ; but to be satisfied that 
He should remain unknown, is like criminality towards Him. 
There is a moral perversity of spirit with him who is willing, 
in the midst of many objects of gratification, that there 
should not be one object of gratitude. It is thus that, even 
in the ignorance of God, there may be a responsibility to- 
wards God. The Discerner of the heart sees whether, for the 



414 



THE DEEECTS ASV USES 



blessings innumerable wherewith He bath strewed the path 
of every man, He be treated like the unknown benefactor 
who was diligently sought, or like the unknown benefactor 
who was never cared for. In respect at least of desire after 
God, the same distinction of character may be observed be- 
tween one man and another — whether God be wrapt in 
mystery, or stand forth in full development to our world. 
Even though a mantle of deepest obscurity lay over the 
question of His existence, this would not efface the distinc- 
tion, between the piety on the one hand which laboured and 
aspired after Him, and the impiety upon the other which 
never missed the evidence that it did not care for, and so 
grovelled in the midst of its own sensuality and selfishness. 
The eye of a heavenly witness is upon all these varieties ; 
and thus, whether it be darkness or whether it be dislike 
which hath caused a people to be ignorant of God, there is 
with Him a clear principle of judgment, that he can extend 
even to the outfields of atheism. 

13. It would appear then, that even in the initial state of 
the human mind on the question of a God, there is an im- 
pellent force upon the conscience, which man ought to obey, 
and which he incurs guilt by resisting. We do not speak 
of that light which irradiates the termination of the in- 
quirer's path, but of that embryo or rudimental light which 
glimmers over the outset of it ; which serves at least to in- 
dicate the commencement of his way ; and which, for aught 
he knows, may brighten, as he advances onwards, to the 
blaze of a full and finished revelation. At no point of this 
progress does " the trumpet give an uncertain sound," ex- 
tending, if not to those who stand on the ground of Anti- 
theism, (which we have already pronounced upon and we 
trust proved to be madly irrational) — at least to those who 
stand on the ground of Atheism ? who, though strangers to 



Or NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



415 



the conviction, are certainly not strangers to the conception 
of a Deity. It is of the utmost practical importance, that 
even these are not beyond the jurisdiction of an obvious 
principle ; and that a right obligatory call can be addressed 
to men so far back on the domain of irreligion and igno- 
rance. It is deeply interesting to know, by what sort of 
moral force, even an atheist ought to be evoked from the 
fastness which he occupies — what are the notices, by re- 
sponding to which, he should come forth with open eyes and 
a willing mind to this high investigation ; and by resisting 
which, he will incur a demerit, whereof a clear moral cog- 
nizance might be taken, and whereon a righteous moral con- 
demnation might be passed. The " fishers of men" should 
know the uttermost reach of their argument ; and it is well 
to understand of religion, that, if she have truth and autho- 
rity at all, there is a voice proceeding from her which might 
be universally heard — so that even the remotest families of 
earth, if not reclaimed by her, are laid by her under sentence 
of righteous reprobation. 

14. On this doctrine of the moral dynamics, which operate 
and are in force, even in our state of profoundest ignorance 
respecting God, there may be grounded three important 
applications. 

15. The first is that all men, under all the possible va- 
rieties of illumination, may nevertheless be the fit subjects 
for a judicial cognizance. Their theology, seen through the 
hazy medium of a dull and imperfect evidence, may have 
arisen no higher than to the passing suggestion of a God 
— a mere surmise or rumination about an unseen spirit, who 
tending all their footsteps, was their guardian and their guide 
through the dangers of the pathless wilderness. Now in 
this thought, fugitive though it be, in these uncertain 
glimpses whether of a truth or of a possibility, there is 



416 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



that to which the elements of their moral nature might 
respond — so that to them, there is not the same exemption 
from all responsibility, which will be granted to the man 
who is sunk in hopeless idiotism, or to the infant of a day 
old. Even with the scanty materials of a heathen creed, a 
pure or a perverse morality might be grounded thereupon— 
whether, in those longings of a vague and undefined earn- 
estness that arise from him who feels in his bosom an affinity 
for God and godliness ; or, in the heedlessness of him, 
who, careless of an unknown benefactor, would have been 
alike careless, although he had stood revealed to his gaze, 
with as much light and evidence as is to be had in Christen- 
dom. These differences attest what man is, under the dark 
economy of Paganism ; and so give token to what he would 
be, under the bright economy of a full and finished revelation. 
It is thus that the Searcher of the heart will find out data 
for a reckoning, even among the rudest of nature's children, 
or among those whose spiritual light glimmers most feebly. 
Even the simple theology of the desert can supply the ma- 
terials of a coming judgment — so that the Discerner of the 
inner man will be at no loss for a principle, on which He 
might clearly and righteously try all the men of all the 
generations that be upon the face of the earth. 

16. The second important bearing of this principle is on 
the subject of religious education. Eor what is true of a 
savage is true of a child. Its moral may outrun its argu- 
mentative light. Long anterior to the possibility of any 
sound conviction as to the character or existence of a God, 
it may respond with sound and correct feeling to the mere 
conception of Him. "We hold, that, on this principle, the 
practice of early, nay even of infantine religious education, 
may, in opposition to the invectives of Rousseau and others, 
be fully and philosophically vindicated. Eor the effect of 



OE NATUEAL THEOLOGY. 



417 



this anticipative process is, that, though it do not at once 
enlighten the mind on the question of a God, it at least 
awakens to the question. It does not consummate the pro- 
cess ; but in as far as the moral precedes the intellectual, it 
makes good the preliminary steps of the process — insomuch 
that, in every Christian land, the youth and the manhood 
are accountable for their belief, because accountable for their 
use or their neglect of that inquiry, by which the belief 
ought to have been determined. They have all from their 
infancy heard of God. Many have been trained to think of 
Him, amidst a thousand associations of reverence. Some, 
under a roof of piety, have often lisped the prayers of early 
childhood to this unseen Being ; and, in the oft-repeated 
sound of morning and evening orisons, they have become 
familiar to His name. Even they who have grown up at 
random through the years of a neglected boyhood, are greatly 
within the limits of that responsibility for which we plead. 
They are fully possessed, if not with the certainty, at least 
with the idea, of a great eternal Sovereign. The very impre- 
cations of profaneness may have taught it to them. The very 
Sabbath they spend in riot and blasphemy at least reminds 
them of a God. The worship-bell of the church they never 
enter, conveys to them, if not the truth, at least an imagina- 
tion of the truth, which, if it do not arrest them by a sense 
of obligation, will leave guilt upon their souls — though it be 
guilt against a God who is unknown. 

17, But lastly, we may now perceive what that is, on which 
a teacher of religion finds an introduction for his topic, even 
in the minds of people in the lowest state both of moral and 
intellectual debasement. They may have not that in them, at 
the outset of his ministrations, which can enable them to 
decide the question of God ; but they have at least that in 
them which should summon all their faculties to the respect- 

2 E 



418 



THE DEFECTS AXD USES 



ful entertainment of it. They have at least such a sense of 
the Divinity, as their own consciences will tell, should put 
them on the regards and the inquiries of moral earnestness. 
This is a clear principle which operates at the very com- 
mencement of a religious course ; and causes the first transi- 
tion, from the darkness and insensibility of alienated nature, 
to the feelings and attentions of seriousness. The truth is, 
that there is a certain rudimental theology everywhere, on 
which the lessons of a higher theology may be grafted — as 
much as to condemn, if not to awaken the apathy of nature. 
"What we have already said of the relation in which the 
father of a starving household stands to the giver of an 
anonymous donation, holds true of the relation in which all 
men stand to the unseen or anonymous God. Though in a 
state of absolute darkness, and without one token or clue to 
a discovery, there is room for the exhibition of moral differ- 
ences among men — for even then, all the elements of mo- 
rality might be at work, and all the tests of moral propriety 
might be abundantly verified; and still more, after that 
certain likelihoods had arisen, or some hopeful opening had 
occurred for investigating the secret of a God. There is the 
utmost moral difference that can be imagined between the 
man who would gaze with intense scrutiny upon these like- 
lihoods, and the man who, either in heedlessness or aversion, 
would turn his eyes from them ; between the man who 
would seize upon such an opening, and prosecute such an 
investigation to the uttermost, and the man who either retires 
or shrinks from the opportunity of a disclosure that might 
burden him both with the sense and with the services of 
some mighty obligation. 

18. And the same moral force which begins this inquiry, 
also continues and sustains it. If there be power in the 
very conception of a God to create and constitute the duty 



OF THEOLOGY. 



419 



of seeking after Hhn, this power grows and gathers with 
every footstep of advancement in the high investigation. 
If the thought of a merely possible Deity have rightfully 
awakened, a sense of obligation within us to entertain the 
question ; the view of a probable Deity must enhance this 
feeling, and make the claim upon our attention still more 
urgent and imperative than at the first. Every new likeli- 
hood makes the call louder, and the challenge more incum- 
bently binding than before. In proportion to the light we 
had. attained, would be the criminality of resisting any further 
notices or manifestations of that mighty Being with whom 
we had so nearly and. so emphatically to do. Under the 
impulse of a right principle, we should follow on to know 
G-od. — till, after having done full justice both to our oppor- 
tunities and our powers, we had made the most of all the 
available evidence that was within our reach, and possessed 
ourselves of all the knowledge that was accessible. 

19. We can conceive how, under the influence of these 
considerations, one should begin and prosecute the studv of 
Natural Theology, till he had exhausted it. But an inter- 
esting inquiry remains. We have already endeavoured to 
estimate what the proper leadings of the mind are* at the 
commencement and along the progress of the study. The 
remaining question is, "What were the proper leadings of the 
mind at the termination of it ? 

20. And first it will be seen, on the principles which we 
have already endeavoured to establish, that no alleged de- 
fect of evidence in Xatural Theology can extinguish the 
use of it — a use which might still remain, under every con- 
ceivable degree whether of dimness or of distinctness in its 
views, Even the faint and distant probabilities of the sub- 
ject, may still lay upon us the duty of careful and strenuous 
inquisition ; and that long anterior to our full acquaintance 



420 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



with the certainties of the subject. The verisimilitudes of 
the question are the signal-posts, by following the intima- 
tions of which, we are at length conducted to the verities of 
the question. Although Natural Theology, therefore, should 
fail to illuminate, yet, by a moral force upon the attention, 
it may fully retain the power to impel. Even if it should 
have but some evidence, however slender, this should put 
us at the very least into the attitude of inquirers ; and the 
larger the evidence, the more earnest and vigilant ought the 
inquiry to be. Thus a great object is practically fulfilled by 
Natural Theology. It gives us to conceive, or to conjecture r 
or to know so much of God, that, if there be a professed 
message with the likely signatures upon it of having pro- 
ceeded from Him — though not our duty all at once to 
surrender, it is at least our bounden duty to investigate. 
It may not yet be entitled to a place in our creed ; but it 
is at least entitled to a place in the threshold of the under- 
standing — where it may wait the full and fair examination 
of its credentials. It may not be easy to measure the in- 
tensity of Nature's light ; but enough if it be a light that s 
had we obeyed its intimations, would have guided us onwards 
to larger manifestations of the Deity. If Natural Theology 
but serve thus to fix and direct our inquiries, it may fulfil 
a most important part as the precursor of revelation. It 
may not be itself the temple ; but it does much by leading 
the way to it. Even at the outset period of our thickest 
ignorance, there is a voice which calls upon us to go forth 
in quest of Grod. And in proportion as we advance does the 
voice become more urgent and audible, in calling us onward 
to further manifestations, it says much for Natural The- 
ology, that it begins at the commencement, and carries us 
forward a part of this way ; and it has indeed discharged a 
most important function, if, at the point where its guesses 



Or NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



421 



or its discoveries terminate, it leaves us with as much light 
as should make us all awake to the farther notices of a God, 
or as shall leave our heedlessness wholly inexcusable. 

21. There is a confused imagination with many, that 
every new accession, whether of evidence or of doctrine, 
made to the Natural, tends in so far to reduce the claims or 
to depreciate the importance of the Christian Theology. 
The apprehension is, that, as the latter was designed to 
supplement the insufficiency of the former, — then, the more 
that the arguments of Xatural Theology are strengthened, 
or its truths are multiplied, the more are the lessons of the 
Christian Theology unneeded and uncalled for. It is thus 
that the discoveries of reason are held as superseding, or as 
casting a shade of insignificance, and even of discredit, over 
the discoveries of revelation. There is a certain dread or 
jealousy, with some humble Christians, of all that incense 
which is offered at the shrine of the Divinity by human 
science— -whose daring incursion on the field of theology, 
it is thought, will, in very proportion to the brilliancy of 
its success, administer both to the proud independence of the 
infidel, and to the pious alarm of the believer. 

22. Bat, to mitigate this disquietude, it should be recol- 
lected, in the first place, that, if Christianity have real and 
independent evidence of being a message from God, it will 
be all the more humbly and respectfully deferred to, should 
a previous natural theology have assured us of His existence, 
and thrown the radiance of a clear and satisfying demon- 
stration over the perfections of His character. However 
plausible its credentials may be, we should feel no great 
interest in its statements or its overtures, if we doubted the 
reality of that Being from whom it professes to have come ; 
and it is precisely in as far as we are preoccupied with the 
conviction of a throne in heaven, and of a God sitting upon 



422 



THE DEFECTS AKB USES 



that throne, that we should receive what bore the signatures 
of an embassy from Him with awful reverence. 

23. But there is another consideration still more decisive 
of the place and importance of Christianity, notwithstanding 
every possible achievement by the light of nature. There 
are many discoveries which, so far from alleviating, serve but 
to enhance the difficulties of the question, ITor example, 
though science has made known to us the magnitude of the 
universe, it has not thereby advanced one footstep towards 
the secret of God's moral administration ; but has., in fact, 
receded to a greater distance, from this now more hopeless, 
because now more complex and unmanageable problem than 
before. To multiply the data of a question, is not always 
the way to facilitate its solution ; but often the way, rather, 
to make it more inextricable. And this is precisely the 
effect of all the discoveries that can be made by natural 
theology, on that problem which it is the special office of 
Christianity to resolve. "With every new argument by which 
philosophy enhances the goodness and greatness of the Su- 
preme Being, does it deepen still more the guilt and ingrati- 
tude of those who have revolted against Him. The more 
emphatically it can demonstrate the care and benevolence of 
God — the more emphatically, along with this, does it de- 
monstrate the worthlessness of man. The same light which 
irradiates the perfections of the divine nature^ irradiates., 
with more fearful manifestations than ever, the moral dis- 
ease and depravation into which humanity has fallen. Had 
natural theology been altogether extinct, and there had been 
no sense of a law or lawgiver among men, we should have 
been unconscious of any difficulty to be redressed, of any 
dilemma from which we needed extrication. But the theo- 
logy of nature and conscience tells us of a law; and in 
proportion as it multiplies the claims of the Lawgiver in 



Or 2STA TUBAL THEOLOGY. 



423 



heaven, does it aggravate the criminality of its subjects upon 
earth. With the rebellious phenomenon of a depraved spe- 
cies before our eyes, every new discovery of Grod but deepens 
the enigma of man's condition in time, and of his prospects 
in eternity ; and so makes the louder call for that remedial 
system, which it is the very purpose of Christianity to 
introduce into the world. 

24. We hold that the theology of nature sheds powerful 
light on the being of a Grod ; and that, even from its unaided 
demonstrations, we can reach a considerable degree of pro- 
bability, both for His moral and natural attributes. But 
when it undertakes the question between God and man, 
this is what it finds to be impracticable. It is here where 
the main helplessness of nature lies. It is baffled in all its 
attempts to decipher the state and the prospects of man, 
viewed in the relation of an offending subject to an offended 
sovereign. In a word, its chief obscurity, and which it is 
wholly unable to disperse, is that which rests on the hopes 
and the destiny of our species. There is in it enough of 
manifestation to awaken the fears of guilt, but not enough 
again to appease them. It emits, and audibly emits, a note 
of terror ; but in vain do we listen for one authentic word 
of comfort from any of its oracles. It is able to see the 
danger, but not the deliverance. It can excite the fore- 
bodings of the human spirit, but cannot quell them — know- 
ing just enough to stir the perplexity, but not enough to 
set the perplexity at rest. It can state the difficulty, but 
cannot unriddle the difficulty — having just as much know- 
ledge as to enunciate the problem, but not so much as might 
lead to the solution of tho problem. There must be a 
measure of light, we do allow ; but, like the lurid gleam of 
a volcano, it is not a light which guides, but which bewilders 
and terrifies. It prompts the question, but cannot frame 



424 THE DEFECTS AKD USES 

or furnish the reply. Natural theology may see as much as 
shall draw forth the anxious interrogation, " What shall I 
do to be saved?" The answer to this comes from a higher 
theology. 

25. These are the grounds on which we would affirm the 
insufficiency of that academic theism, which is sometimes 
set forth in such an aspect of completeness and certainty, 
as might seem to leave a revelation or a gospel wholly un- 
called for. Many there are who would gloss over the diffi- 
culties of the question ; and who, in the midst of all that 
undoubted outrage which has been inflicted by sinful 
creatures on the truth and the holiness and the justice of 
God, would, by merging all the attributes of the Divinity 
into a placid and undistinguishing tenderness, still keep 
their resolute hold of heaven, as at least the splendid 
imagination, by which to irradiate the destinies of our species. 
It is thus that an airy unsupported romance has been held 
forth as the vehicle, on which to embark all the hopes and 
the hazards of eternity. We would not disguise the meagre- 
ness of such a system. We would not deliver the lessons 
of natural theology, without telling at the same time of its 
limits. We abjure the cruelty of that sentiment alism^ 
which, to hush the alarms of guilty man, would rob the 
Deity of his perfections, and stamp a degrading mockery 
upon His law. When expounding the arguments of natural 
theology, along with the doctrines which it dimly shadows 
forth, we must speak of the difficulties which itself suggests 
but which it cannot dispose of; we must make mention of 
the obscurities into which it runs, but which it is unable to 
dissipate — of its unresolved doubts— of the mysteries through 
which it vainly tries to grope its uncertain way— of its 
weary and fruitless efforts—of its unutterable longings. 
And should, on the one hand, the speculations of human 



Or ^ATTJBAL THEOLOGY. 



425 



ingenuity, and, on the other, the certainties of a well 
accredited revelation, come forth to illuminate this scene of 
darkness — we must not so idolize the light or the sufficiency 
of nature, as to turn from the firmament's meridian blaze, 
that we might witness and admire the tiny lustre of a glow- 
worm. 

26. The two positions are perfectly reconcilable — first, of 
the insufficiency of natural religion ; and secondly, the great 
actual importance of it. It is the wise and profound saying 
of D'Alembert, that " man has too little sagacity to resolve 
an infinity of questions, which he has yet sagacity enough 
to make." jSTow this marks the degree in which natural 
theology is sagacious — being able, from its own resources, 
to construct a number of cases, which at the same time it 
is not able to reduce. These must be handed up for solution 
to a higher calculus ; and thus it is, that the theology of 
nature and of the schools, the theology of the ethical class 
— though most unsatisfactory, when treated as a terminating 
science — is most important, and the germ of developments 
at once precious and delightful, when treated as a rudimental 
one. It is a science, not so much of dicta as of desiderata ; 
and, from the way in which these are met by the counterpart 
doctrines of the gospel, the light of a powerful and most 
pleasing evidence is struck out by the comparison between 
them. It is that species of evidence which arises from the 
adaptation of a mould to its counterpart form ; for there is 
precisely this sort of fitting, in the adjustment which obtains 
between the questions of the natural and the responses of 
the supernatural theology. For the problem which natural 
theology cannot resolve, the precise difficulty which it is 
wholly unable to meet or to overcome, is the restoration of 
sinners to acceptance and favour with a God of justice. All 
the resources and expedients of natural theology are ineom- 



426 



THE DEFECTS AXD USES 



petent for this solution—it being, in fact, the great deside- 
ratum which it cannot satisfy. Still it performs an important 
part in making us sensible of the desideratum. It makes 
known to us our sin ; but it cannot make known to us 
salvation. Let us not overlook the importance of that 
which it does, in its utter helplessness as to that which it 
does not. It puts the question, though it cannot answer 
the question ; and nowhere so much as at this turning-point, 
are both the uses and the defects of natural theology so 
conspicuously blended. 

27. The true apprehension seems to be that natural 
theology, however little to be trusted as an informer, yet as 
an inquirer, or rather as a prompter to inquiry, is of ines- 
timable service. It is a high function that she discharges, 
for though not able to satisfy the search, she impels to the 
search. We are apt to undervalue, if not to set her aside alto- 
gether, when we compare her obscure and imperfect notices 
with the lustre and the fulness of revelation. But this is 
because we overlook the virtue that lies in the probabilities 
of a subject — a virtue, either, on the one hand, to fasten the 
attention ; or, on the other hand, to condemn the want of 
it. This we hold to be the precise office of natural theology 
— and an office too, which she performs, not merely as the 
theology of science among those who listen to her demon- 
strations in the academic hall ; but which she also performs 
with powerful and practical effect, as the theology of con- 
science, throughout all the classes of our general population. 
It is this initial work which makes her so useful, we should 
say so indispensable, as a preliminary to the gospel. Natural 
theology is quite overrated by those who would represent 
it as the foundation of the edifice. It is not that, but 
rather the taper by which we must grope our way to the 
edifice. The stability of a fabric is not greater than the 



Or NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



427 



stability of that upon which it rests ; and it were ascribing 
a general infirmity to revelation, to set it forth, as leaning 
upon natural theism, in the way that a mathematical doctrine 
leans upon the axioms or first principles of the science. 
Christianity rests on its own proper evidence ; and if, 
instead of this, she be made to rest on an antecedent natural 
religion, she becomes weak throughout, because weak radi- 
cally. It is true that in theology, the natural goes before 
the revealed, even as the cry of weakness or distress goes 
before the relief to which it aspires, and which it is prompted 
to seek after. It goes before, not synthetically in the order 
of demonstration, but historically in the mind of the inquirer. 
It is not that natural religion is the premises, and Chris- 
tianity the conclusion ; but it is that natural religion creates 
an appetite which it cannot quell ; and he who is urged 
thereby, seeks for a rest and a satisfaction which he can 
only obtain in the fulness of the gospel. Natural theology 
has been called the basis of Christianity. It would accord 
better with our own views of the place which it occupies, 
and of the high purpose which it undoubtedly serves — if it 
were called the basis of Christianization. 

28. The most important exemplification of the way in 
which natural religion bears upon Christianity, is furnished 
by the question of a sinner's acceptance with God. Natural 
religion can suggest to man the apprehension of his guilt ; 
for however dim her objective view of the Deity, there is no 
such dimness in her ethical notion of what is due even to an 
uncertain God. Without having seriously resolved the 
question, we may stand convicted to our own minds of a 
hardened and habitual carelessness to the question . If ou* 
whole lives long have been spent in the midst of created 
things, without any serious or sustained effort of our spirits, 
in quest of a Creator—if, as our consciences can tell, the 



428 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



whole drift and practical earnestness of our thoughts are 
towards the gifts, with but a rare and occasional anxiety 
towards the Griver— if the sense of Him touch but lightly- 
on our spirits, and we, by our perpetual lapses from the 
sacred to the secular, prove that our gravitation is to earth, 
and that in truth our best-loved element is atheism — if the 
notices of a Glod, however indistinct, wherewith we are 
surrounded, instead of fastening our regards on this high 
contemplation, do but disturb without at all influencing the 
general tenor of our engagements — these are things of 
which the light of Nature can take cognizance ; and these 
are things because of which, and of their felt unworthiness, 
nature is visited by the misgivings both of remorse and of 
terror. She has data enough on which to found the demon- 
stration and the sense of her own unworthiness ; and hence 
a general feeling of insecurity among all spirits, a secret but 
strong apprehension that all is not right between them and 
God. 

[30. And without fetching the lesson of our guilt from 
the depths and the subtleties of our latent ungodliness, it 
gleams forth obviously upon us, from the palpable misdoings 
of outward and visible history. "We do not need to dive 
among the arcana of our inward nature to be informed of 
that moral perversity which is so broadly announced by act 
and by every-day behaviour. Not to speak of the frauds and 
profligacies of the worst in society, there is enough in the 
failures and the infirmities and the omissions of the best 
to account for that sense of sinfulness which in spite of 
every disguise may be detected in the purest of bosoms. 
The truth is, that wherever a real moral superiority of 
character is found, there is also a greater moral delicacy of 
conscience, and so a quicker sensibility to what may be 
deemed by many but the slighter violations of rectitude. 



Or FATTJKAL THEOLOGY. 



429 



And hence we should imagine that a sense of guilt and of 
deficiency is well nigh universal throughout our species. 
It is a felt and familiar impression every where — not the 
fruit of that education which prevails within the limits of 
Christendom, but an instant suggestion of conscience 
throughout all the climes of our habitable earth. Such is 
the experience of Missionaries. They do not need to de- 
monstrate the sinfulness of the human character — for even 
the dark imagery of superstition proves that the ground is 
thus far prepared for them. There is a certain misgiving 
sense of condemnation in every bosom — a distrust grounded 
on the fear of Heaven's provoked enmity— and the feeling 
of this enmity still further alienates the world from its 
God.*] 

[* There is on this subject a distinction between one principle and ano- 
ther in Natural Theology, on which there in fact turns a corresponding- 
distinction between one system and another in Christianity. If we hold 
the Supreme Being to be a God of indefinite placability, then will it be 
our feeling- that the barrier of separation which sin hath interposed be- 
tween God and His creatures, may be easily surmounted. But if, on the 
other hand, we hold Him to be a God of inflexible justice, then the barrier 
will appear to be impassable ; or, at least, it will appear in our eyes a 
problem of difficulty, how mercy can be so dispensed to a guilty world 
that the honours of the one attribute may be preserved, under the exer- 
cise and manifestation of the other. So that the question between one 
gospel sect or denomination and another, hangs upon an anterior question 
in natural theism. If we look on God only as a benign and affectionate 
parent, then we might imagine Him recalling His strayed children by a 
single act of connivance. But if, instead of this, we look on God only an 
a judge and a moral governor, then might the dignity of this government 
seem to require that they should be irrecoverable outcasts from a kingdom 
whose laws they have violated. It were altogether worthy of a revela- 
tion from Heaven, to unriddle this perplexity ; and precisely as we are 
inchned to cherish the sentimental or the severe and sacred view of the 
Divinity, will either the apparatus of redemption be set at nought or will 
we welcome the tidings that unto us a Saviour has been born.] 



430 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



30. This is not a matter of mere sensitive and popular 
impression ; but in strict accordance with the views of a 
calm and intelligent jurisprudence. It enters into the very- 
essence of our conception of a moral government, that 
it must have sanctions which could not have place, were 
there either to be no dispensation of rewards and punish- 
ments ; or were the penalties, though denounced with all 
the parade and proclamation of law, to be never executed. 
It is not the lesson of conscience, that God would, under 
the mere impulse of a parental fondness for the creatures 
whom He had made, let down the high state and sovereignty 
which belong to him ; or that He would forbear the infliction 
of the penalty, because of any soft or timid shrinking from 
the pain it would give to the objects of His displeasure. 
There is nothing either in history or nature, which counte- 
nances such an imagination of the Deity, as that, in the 
relentings of mere tenderness, he would stoop to any weak 
or unworthy compromise with guilt. The actual sufferings 
of life speak loudly and experimentally against the supposi- 
tion ; and when one looks to the disease and the agony of 
spirit, and above all the hideous and unsparing death, with 
its painful struggles and gloomy forebodings, which, are 
spread universally over the face of the earth— we cannot but 
imagine of the God who presides over such an economy, that 
He is not a being who will falter from the imposition of any 
severity, which might serve the objects of a high adminis- 
tration. Else all steadfastness of purpose, and steadfastness 
of principle, were fallen from. jBrod would stand forth to 
the eye of his own creatures? a spectacle of outraged dignity. 
And He of whom we imagine that He dwells in an inviolable 
sanctuary, the august Monarch of heaven and earth — :with a 
law by subjects dishonoured, by the sovereign unavenged— 
would possess but the semblance and the mockery of a throne. 



Or HATUBAL THEOLOGY. 



431 



81. Such a conception is not only a violence to the appre- 
hensions of nature, but is even acknowledged at times by 
our academic theists, as a violence to the sound philosophy 
of the subject. The most striking testimony to this effect 
is that given by Dr. Adam Smith, on the first appearance of 
his " Theory of Moral Sentiments nor does it detract from 
its interest or its value, that he afterwards suppressed it, in 
the subsequent editions of his work : — " All our natural 
sentiments," he says, " prompt us to believe, that as perfect 
virtue is supposed necessarily to appear to the Deity as it- 
does to us, as for its own sake and without any farther view , 
the natural and proper object of love and reward, so must 
vice of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither re- 
sent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different 
sects of the ancient philosophy ; and if by resenting be un- 
derstood that violent and disorderly perturbation which ofcen 
distracts and confounds the human heart ; or if by hurting 
be understood the ' doing of mischief wantonly, and with- 
out regard to propriety or justice, such weakness is undoubt- 
edly unworthy of the Divine perfection. But if it be 
meant that vice does not appear to the Deity to be for its 
own sake the object of abhorrence and aversion, and what, 
for its own sake, it is fit and reasonable should be punished, 
the truth of this maxim can by no means be so easily ad- 
mitted. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt 
to fear lest before the holiness of God vice should appear 
to be more worthy of punishment, than the weakness and 
imperfection of human virtue can ever seem to be of reward. 
Man, when about to appear before a Being of infinite per- 
fection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in 
the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the pre- 
sence of his fellow creatures he may often justly elevate 
himself, and may often have reason to think highly of his own 



432 



THE DEFECTS AND USES 



character and conduct, compared to the still greater im- 
perfection of theirs. But the case is quite different, when 
about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a 
Being, he can scarcely imagine, that his littleness and weak- 
ness should ever appear to be the proper objects either of 
esteem or of reward. But he can easily conceive how the 
numberless violations of duty of which he has been guilty, 
should render him the proper object of aversion and punish- 
ment ; neither can he see any reason why the divine indig- 
nation should not be let loose, without any restraint, upon 
so vile an insect as he is sensible that he himself must ap- 
pear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is con- 
scious that he cannot demand it from the justice, but he 
must entreat it from the mercy of Grod. Bepentance, sor- 
row, humiliation, contrition at the thought of his past mis- 
conduct, are upon this account the sentiments which become 
him, and seem to be the only means which he has left for 
appeasing that wrath which he knows he has justly provoked. 
He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally 
fears lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness 
of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime by the 
most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some 
other intercession, some other sacrifice, some other atone- 
ment, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he 
himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine 
justice can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The 
doctrines of revelation coincide in every respect with these 
original anticipations of nature ; and as they teach us how 
little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own 
virtue, so they shew us at the same time that the most 
powerful intercession has been made, and that the most 
dreadful atonement has been paid, for our manifold trans- 
gressions and iniquities." 



OF tfATTTKAL THEOLOGY. 



433 



32. This interesting passage seems to have been written 
by its author, under a true apprehension of that dilemma in 
which the world is involved. He admits a moral govern- 
ment on the part of God. He admits a universal delin- 
quency on the part of man. And his feeling is, that the 
government would be nullified by a mere act of indemnity, 
which rendered no acknowledgment to the justice which 
had been violated, or to the authority of that law which 
had been trampled on. In these circumstances, he casts 
about as it were for an adjustment ; and puts forth a con- 
jectural speculation ; and guesses what the provision should 
be, which, under a new economy, might be adopted for re- 
pairing a defect, that is evidently beyond all the resources 
of natural theism ; and proposes the very expedient of our 
professed revelation, for the resolving of a difficulty which 
had been else impracticable. We deem it a melancholy 
fact, that this noble testimony to the need of a gospel should 
have disappeared in the posterior editions of his work — 
revised and corrected as they were by his own hand. It is 
not for men to sit in the chair of judgment ; and never 
should they feel a greater awe or tenderness upon their 
spirits, than when called to witness or to pronounce upon 
the aberrations of departed genius- Tet when one com- 
pares the passage he could at one time have written, with 
the Memoir, that, after an interval of many years he gave 
to the world, of David Hume, that ablest champion of the 
infidel cause — one fears lest, under the contagion of a near 
and withering intimacy with him, his spirit may have im- 
bibed of the kindred poison ; and he at length have become 
ashamed of the homage that he once had rendered to the 
worth and importance of Christianity. 

33. This, notwithstanding, remains one of the finest exam- 

2 r 



434 



THE DEFECTS AKD USES 



pies of the way in which the Natural hears upon the Chris- 
tian theology ; and of the outgoings, by which the one- 
conducts to a landing-place in the other. We hold that 
there are many such outgoings : that at the utmost margin 
of the former there is a felt want, and that, in accurate 
counterpart to this, the latter has something to offer in pre- 
cise and perfect adaptation thereto. ~Now the great error 
of our academic theism, as commonly treated, is, that it 
expresses no want ; that it reposes in its own fancied suffi- 
ciency ; and that all its landing-places are within itself, and 
along the utmost limits of its own territory. It is no re- 
proach against our philosophical moralists, that they have 
not stepped beyond the threshold of that peculium, which 
is strictly and appropriately theirs ; or not made incursions 
into another department than their own. The legitimate 
complaint is, that, on taking leave of their disciples, they 
warn them not of their being only yet at the outset or in 
the prosecution of a journey, instead of having reached the 
termination of it. They in fact take leave of them in the 
middle of an unprotected highway, when they should have 
reared a finger-post of direction to the places which lie be- 
yond. The paragraph which we have "now extracted, was 
just such a finger-post — though taken down, we deeply re- 
gret to say, by the very hand that had erected it. Our 
veneration for his name must not restrain the observation, 
that, by this, he undid the best service which a professor of 
moral science can render to humanity. Along the confines 
of its domain, there should be raised, in every quarter, the 
floating signals of distress ; that its scholars, instead .of 
being lulled into the imagination that now they may repose 
as in so many secure and splendid dwelling places, should be 
taught to regard them only as towers of observation— 
whence they have to look for their ulterior guidance and 



OF SMTUEAL THEOLOGY. 



435 



their ulterior supplies, to the region of a conterminous 
theology. 

84. There is a difficulty here in the theism of nature, 
within the whole compass of which no solution for it can 
be found. It will at least afford a specimen of the way in 
which the one bears upon the other, if we state the method 
of escape from this difficulty that has been provided in the 
theism of Christianity. The great moral problem which 
under the former waits to be resolved, is to find acceptance 
in the mercy of God, for those who have braved His justice, 
and done despite to the authority of His law ; and that, 
without any compromise of truth or dignity. By the 
offered solution of the Xew Testament, a channel has been 
opened up, through a high mediatorship between God and 
man, for the descent of a grace and a mercy the most exu- 
berant on a guilty world ; and through it, the overtures of 
reconciliation are extended unto all ; and a sceptre of for- 
giveness, but of forgiveness consecrated by the blood of a 
great atonement, has been stretched forth, even to the most 
polluted and worthless outcasts of fche human family ; and 
thus the goodness of the Divinity obtained its fullest vin- 
dication, yet not a goodness at the expense of justice — for 
the affront done to an outraged law, has been amply re- 
paired by the homage to its authority of an illustrious 
Sufferer, who took upon himself the burden of all those 
penalties which we should have borne ; and, in the spectacle 
of whose deep and mysterious sacrifice, God's hatred of 
moral evil stands forth in most impressive demonstration. 
So that, instead of a conflict or a concussion between these 
two essential attributes of His nature, a way has been 
found, by which each is enhanced to the uttermost, and a 
flood of most copious and convincing illustration has been 
poured upon them both. 



436 



THE DEFECTS AKD USES.) 



35. This specimen will best illustrate of moral philosophy, 
even in its most finished state, that it is not what may be 
called a terminating science. It is at best but a science 
in transitu ; and its lessons are those of a preparatory school. 
It contains but the rudiments of a nobler acquirement ; and 
he discharges best the functions of a teacher, not who satiates, 
but who excites the appetite, and then leaves it wholly 
unappeased. This arises from the real state and bearing of 
the science, as being a science not so much of doctrine as of 
desiderata. At most, it leaves its scholars in a sort of twi- 
light obscurity. And, if a just account is rendered of the 
subject, there will unavoidably be the feeling, that, instead 
of having reached a secure landing-place, we have broken off, 
as in the middle of an unfinished demonstration. 

36, That indeed is a most interesting adjustment between 
Moral Philosophy and the Christian Theology, which is 
represented to us by the unresolved difficulties of the one 
science, and the reduction which is made of these difficulties 
in the other. "We have far the most important example of 
this in the doctrine of the atonement— -that sublime mystery, 
by which the attributes of the Divinity have all been har- 
monized ; and the most liberal outlet has been provided for 
mercy to the offender, while still the truth and justice of the 
Lawgiver have been vindicated, and all the securities of His 
moral government are upholden. By the disloyalty of our 
race, the principles of Heaven's jurisprudence are brought 
to a test of utmost delicacy ; for there seems to be no other 
alternative, than that man should perish in overwhelming 
vengeance, or that God should become a degraded sovereign. 
It nullifies the moral government of the world, if all force 
and authority be taken from its sanctions ; and it is a 
problem which even €( angels desired to look into/' how the 
breach could be healed, which had been made by this world's 



OF ^"ATUEAIi THEOLOGY. 



437 



rebellion, and yet the honour of heaven's high Sovereign be 
untarnished by the compromise. The one science lands us 
in the difficulty ; and by the other alone it is that we are 
extricated. The one presents us with the case ; but, for the 
solution of it, we must recur to a higher calculus, to an in- 
strument of more powerful discovery and of fuller revelation. 
The one starts a question which itself cannot untie ; and the 
other furnishes the satisfactory response to it. The deside- 
ratum of the former meets with the doctrine of the latter ; 
and it is this frequent adjustment, as of a mould to its coun- 
terpart die ; it is this close and manifold adaptation between 
the wants of nature and the overtures of a. professed reve- 
lation ; it is this fitting of the supernal application to the 
terrestrial subject upon which it is laid ; it is the way, more 
especially, in which the disruption between heaven and earth 
has been restored, and the frightful chasm that sin has made 
on the condition and prospects of our species is wholly 
repaired to all who will through the completeness of an 
offered Saviour ; it is this mingled harmony of the greater and 
lesser lights, which gives evidence that both have been kindled 
by the same hand, and that it is He who put the candle 
which glimmers so feebly into my heart, it is He also who 
poured the noonday effulgence of Christianity around me. 

37. It were foreign to our prescribed subject to attempt 
an exposition, in however brief and rapid a sketch, of the 
credentials of Christianity. AVe only remark, that, amid 
the lustre and variety of its proofs, there is one strikingly 
analogous, and indeed identical in principle, with our own 
peculiar argument. If in the system of external nature we 
can recognise the evidence of God being its author, in the 
adaptations wherewith it teems to the Moral and Intellectual 
Constitution of Man — there is room and opportunity for 
this very evidence in the book of an external revelation. 



^38 DEFECTS ASTD USES OF NATUBAL THEOLOGY. 



What appears in the construction of a world might be made 
to appear as manifestly in the construction of a volume, 
whose objective truths may present as obvious and skilful 
an accommodation to our mental economy, as do the objective 
things of a created universe. And it is not the less favour- 
able for an indication of its divine original, that whereas 
Nature, as being the original system, abounds with those 
fitnesses which harmonise with the mental constitution in a 
state of health — Christianity, as being a restorative system, 
abounds in fitnesses to the same constitution in a state of 
disease. We are not sure but that in the latter, from its 
very design, we shall meet with 1 still more delicate and 
decisive tests of a designer, than have yet been noticed in 
the former ; and certain it is, that the wisdom and goodness 
and even power of a moral architect, may be as strikingly 
evinced in the reparation, as in the primary establishment 
of a Moral Nature. 



THE EOT. 



G. NORMAN, PRINTER, MAIDEN LANE, GO VENT GARDEN, 





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